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BOOK  OF  MORMON 


Is  it  from  God? 


>  Delivered  in  the 

First  Baptist  Church,  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah, 

— BY — 

ReY.-Mr^-;  XaAMB, 

And  Published  by  Request  of 

His  Excellency,  Governor  Murray. 

And  Others. 


PRINTED    FOR   THE   AUTHOR    BY 
The  Salt  Lake  Herald  Job  Oepartmemt. 


'f^h 


»REQUEST-t-FOR-*.-PUBLICATION-<- 
uiH 

Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  July  2,  1885. 
Dear  Sir: 

The  crowded  houses,  in  attendance  when 
your  course  of  lectures  were  delivered  in  this  city,  sug- 
gest the  propriety  of  givino^  to  them  a  circulation  beyond 
those  who  heard  them,  and  giving  to  the  general  public 
the  results  of  your  research  into  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

With  this  end  in  view  we  request  that  you  publish 
the  course,  in  such  form  as  may  seem  best. 
Respectfully, 
Eli  H.  Murray,  Thos.  Marshall, 

A.  B.  Carlton,  Joseph  R.  Walker, 
G.  L.  Godfrey,  L.  U.  Colbath, 
Arthur  L.  Thomas,     E.  T.  Sprague, 

G.  S.  Erb,  C.  K.  Gilchrist, 

B.  G.  Raybould,  T.  W.  Lincoln, 


RoBT.  G.  McNiece. 


To  the  Rev.  Mr.  M.  T.  Lamb. 


Rev.    M.     T.    Lamb,    Assistant    Pastor  First  Baptist 

Church,  Salt  Lake  City,   Utah: 
Dear  B7'other: 

It  is  with  great  pleasure  that  I  submit  the 
following,  being  a  resolution  unanimously  adopted  by 
the  members  of  the  First  Baptist  Church,  convened  in  a 
regular  meeting  last  evening: 

"Havinff  been  exceedinfjly  interested  and  instru<^fed  by 
the  lectures  recently  delivered  by  brother  Lamb,  assistant 
pastor  of  this  church,  on  the  Book  of  Mormon,  and  heing 
fully  persuaded  of  his  capability  and  skill  in  handling  this 
important  subject  successfully,  and  to  the  interests  of  the 
cause  of  Christ, 

*'Bb  it  BEsoiiVED,  That  we^  as  a  church,  heartily  unite 
in  the  request  already  made  by  His  Excellency,  Gover- 
nor Eli  H.  Murray,  and  others,  that  bro  Lamb  take  steps  im- 
mediately to  have  said  lectures  published  in  order  that  they 
may  be  brought  within  the  reach  of  all. 

Yours  truly, 

F.  W.  Blohm, 

Church  Clerk. 


BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 

A  ¥ORD  OP  ElPLlMTM. 

The  preparation  and  delivery  of  the  following  lectures 
was  undertaken  with  preat  diffidence  and  hesitation.    Only 
one  person  in  the  city  favored  it.     The  majority  of  his  own 
people  were  not  present  at  the  delivery  of  his   first  lecture. 
f*-       They  had  heard  so  much  upon  the  various  peculiarities  of 
■^      the  Mormon  Churcli  that  the  subject  hid  become  nauseous, 
^      and  the  Mormons  themselves  had  become  so  used  to  the  sal- 
lies of  their  opponents  that  they  took  it  as  a  matter  of  course 
\       and  only  smiled  when  a  new  announcement  whs  made.  After 
studying  the  situation  carefully,  however,  the  author  became 
satisfied  that  he  had  somethinff  somewhat  out  of  the  usual 
beat-^n  path,  and  that  if  honestly,  earnestly  and  kindly  pre- 
sented, it  would  receive  attention  and  accomijlish  Pome  good. 
He  accordingly  posted  a  few  notices  in  the  neighborhood  of 

4  his  church,  and  advertised  in  the  various  city  papers,  nearly 
all  of  which  kindly  made  a  special  note  of  the  lecture. 

The  Sunday  morning  Herald,  for  instance,  contained  a 
local  item  somewhat  after  this  faKhion: 

^  "SOMETHING  NEW! 

^  Rpv.  Mr.  Lamb,  of  the  Baptist  church,  has  posted  a  few 

handbills  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  church,  announcing  a 
lecture  upon  the  Book  of  Mormon  to-night,  promising  *a 
calm,  earnest  discussion, entirely  free  from  any  abui^eor  slan- 
der or  ill  will,'  «-tc.  If  the  gentleman  succeeds  in  fulfilling 
his  pledge,  and  can  get  through  the  entire  lecture  without 
descending  to  abuse  or  slander  or  exhibiting  ill  will^  he  will 
do  better  than  many  of  the  Mormon  opponents,  and  will  de- 
serve a  candid  hearing,  especially  as  he  promipes  something 
new  and  fresh  in  the  lineof  a  discussion  of  tHe  Mormon  prob* 
lem." 

This  notice  in  the  Seraldj  probably,  had  mainly  to  do 
\vith  the  bringing  out  a  large  number  of  Mormons^  who  pack- 
ed the  house  to  overflowing,  so  that  aside  from  the  one- 
hundred  extra  chairs  brought  into  requisition,  many  re- 
mained standing  during  the  entire  service. 

The  promise  of  the  lecturer  was  so  faithfully  carried  out 
that  the  Mormons  almost  universally  expressed  their  satis- 


faction  and  pleasure  and  determined  to  hear  the  course 
through.  Next  Sabbath  evening,  the  schoolroom  in  the  rear 
of  the  main  audience  room  was  thrown  open  and  partially 
seated,  and  almost  every  available  inch  of  sittinof  or  staodingr 
room  in  the  entire  building  was  occupied.  And  the  same 
was  repeated  the  third  evening,  multitudes  going  away  who 
could  not  get  in  even  at  the  door. 

The  unasual,  and  to  the  author,  the  altogether  unexpect- 
ed interest  taken  in  the  lectures  during  their  delivery,  added 
to  the  very  kind  request  of  His  Excellency,  Gov.  Murray, 
and  the  other  honorable  gentlemen  wbc  se  names  are  associa- 
ted with  his,  backed  up  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  his  own 
church,  is  the  author's  only  excuse  for  thus  presenting  his 
humble  efforts  to  the  public. 

He  would  have  been  glad  had  time  and  opportunity  per- 
mitted a  careful  and  thorough  review.  His  prayer  is  that  in 
their  wider  field  they  may  awaken  thought,  lead  to  investiga- 
tion, and  finally  result  in  the  establishment  of  truth. 

Believing,  as  his  intercourse  with  Mormon  neighbors 
and  his  contact  with  a  large  number  of  Mormon  families  has 
led  hitn  to  believe,  that  the  majority  of  them  are  honest  and 
sincere  in  their  convictions,  and  regard  the  Book  of  Mormon 
as  inspired  of  Hod,  he  feels  profoundly  moved  as  he  ventures 
to  come  before  them  with  so  unwelcome  a  message  as  the  word 
"fraud"  must  necessarily  be.  And  yet,  having  reached  this  con- 
clusion by  what  seems  to  him  irresistible  logic  and  unanswer- 
able arguments,  he  dare  not,  as  an  honest  and  conscientious 
Christian  man,  who  must  answer  at  the  bar  of  Ood  for  faith- 
fulness or  neglect,  withhold  his  conclusions. 

And  he  takes  this  opportunity  of  asking  sincerely  and 
earnestly  any  honest  Mormon,  who,  after  carefully  weighing 
the  arguments  herein  presented  against  the  divine  origin  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  if  he  can  present  a  real  satisfactory  reply, 
to  do  so  through  the  public  press,or  by  private  correspondence, 
only  hoping  that  any  replies  made,  whether  public  or  private, 
shall  be  made  in  the  same  kind,  charitable.  Christian  spirit 
the  author  has,  at  least,  tried  to  maintain  throughout  this 
discussion.  M.  T.  LAMB. 

Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  July,  1885. 


BOOK    OF    MORMOK. 


"The  words  of  the  Lord  are  pure  words;  as  silver  tried  in 
a  furnace  of  earth,  purified  seven  times." — Ps.  12,  6. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  lies  at  the  foundation,  is  the 
corner  stone  of  the  Mormon  Church : 

"We  consider  the  Bible,  Book  of  Mormon,  Book  of  Doc- 
trine  and  Covenants,  Pearl  of  Great  Price  and  Sayings  of 
Joseph  the  Seer,  our  guides  in  faith  and  doctrine.  The  first 
four  have  been  adopted  as  such  by  a  vote  of  the  saints  in 
general  conference." — From  preface  of  "A  Compendium  of 
the  Doctrines  of  the  Gospel." 

"We  believe  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God,  as  far  as  it 
is  translated  correctly :  we  also  believe  the  Book  of  Mormon 
to  be  the  word  of  God."— Art.  8  of  "Articles  of  Faith." 

A  slight  hint  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  has  one 
great  advantage  over  the  Bible:  it  was  translated  by 
divine  inspiration,  the  Bible  was  not.  The  translation  of 
the  Bible  was  the  work  of  fallible  men,  and  therefore 
liable  to  many  errors;  the  Book  of  Mormon  was  trans- 
lated through   ''Urim  and  Thummim,"    helped  by  an 


angel   sent  from   heaven,    and  therefore  free  from    the 
errors  that  necessarily  attach  to  a  human  translation. 

"And  we  know  also  that  they  have  been  translated  by  the 
gift  and  power  of  God,  for  his  voice  hath  declared  it  unto  us; 
wherefore  we  know  of  a  certainty  that  the  work  is  true." — 
Affidavit  of  "The  Three  Witnesses."  See  preface  to  Book  of 
Mormon 

"The  tablets  or  plates  were  translated  by  Smith,  who  used 
a  small,  oval  or  kidney-shaped  stone,  called  Urim  and  Thum- 
mim,  that  seemed  endowed  with  the  marvelous  power  of 
converting  the  characters  on  the  plates,  when  used  by  Smith, 
into  English,  who  w^ould  then  dictate  to  Oowdry  what  to 
write."  —  Statement  of  David  Whitmer.  See  "Myth  of  the 
Manuscript  Found,"  p.  83. 

Martin  Harris  "explained  the  translation  as  follows:  By 
aid  of  the  seer-stone,  sentences  would  appear  and  were  read 
by  the  prophet  and  written  by  Martin,^  and  when  finished, 
he  would  say  ^Written,'  and  if  correctly  written,  that  sentence 
would  disappear  and  another  appear  in  its  place,  but  if  not 
^  written  correctly,  it  remained  until  corrected,  so  that  the 
translation  was  just  as  it  was  engraven  on  the  plates,  precisely 
in  the  language  then  used."— Myth  of  the  M.  F.,  p.  91. 

In  addition  to  the  very  great  advantage  the  Book  of 
Mormon  possesses  over  the  Bible  in  an  inspired  transla- 
tion, it  possesses  other  advantages: 

"If  the  prophetical  part  of  this  wonderful  book  be  com- 
pared with  the  prophetical  declarations  of  the  Bible,  there 
will  be  found  much  evidence  in  the  latter  to  establish  the 
truth  of  the  former.  But  though  there  are  many  predictions 
in  the  Book  of  Mormon  relating  to  the  great  events  of  the 
last  days  which  the  Bible  gives  us  no  information  about,  yet 
there  is  nothing  in  the  predictions  of  the  Bible  that  contradicts 
in  the  least  the  predictions  of  the  Book  of  Mormon." 

"If  the  doctrinal  part  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  be  com- 
pared with  the  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  there  will  be  found  the 
same  perfect  harmony  which  we  find  on  the  comparison  of  the 
prophetical  parts  of  the  two  books,  although  there  are  many 
points  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ  that  are  far  more  plain  and 
definite  in  the  Book  of  Mormon  than  in  the  Bible,  and  many 
things  revealed  in  relation  to  doctrine  that  never  could  be 
fully  learned  from  the  Bible." — "Divine  Authenticity  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon,"  by  Orson  Pratt. 

*Martin  TIarris  wrote  a  small  })ortion  of  the  book  only.  The  major 
portion  was  written  by  Oliver  Cowdry. 


The  Book  of  Mormon  is  then  superior  to  the  Bible 
in  at  least  three  respects: 

a. — It  was  infallibly  translated. 

^  __It  has  in  it  ''many  predictions  relating  to  the 
great  events  of  the  last  days  -which  the  Bible  gives  us  no 
information  about;"  and, 

c. — "There  are  many  points  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ 
that  are  far  more  plain  and  definite  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon  than  in  the  Bible;  and  many  things  revealed  in 
relation  to  doctrine  that  never  could  be  fully  learned 
from  the  Bible." 

And  this  view  of  the  superior  merits  ol  the  Book  of 
Mormon  came  from  a  very  high  source  —  from  the 
Prophet  and  Seer,  Joseph  Smith,  himself. 

"Nov.  28th,  1841. — In  council  with  the  twelve  apostles, 
Joseph  Smith  said: 'I  told  the  brethreu  that  the  Book  of- 
Mormon  was  the  most  correct  of  any  book  on  earth,  and  the 
keystone  of  our  religion,  and  a  man  would  get  nearer  to  Go(l 
by  abiding  by  its  precepts  than  by  any  other  book."— Com- 
pendium, p.  273. 

This  central  place  accorded  the  Book  of  Mormon 
by  the  Mormon  Church  is  quite  a  sufficient  excuse  for 
asking  your  attention  to  a  consideration  of  its  claims  to 
divine  authority.  The  following  earnest,  incisive  words 
from  Orson  Pratt  I  most  heartily  approve: 

^'This  book  must  be  either  true  or  false.  If  true,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  important  messages  ever  sent  from  God  to 
man,  affecting  both  the  temporal  and  eternal  interests  of 
every  people  under  heaven  to  the  same  extent  and  in  the 
same  degree  that  the  message  of  Noah  aifected  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  old  world.  If  false,  it  is  one  of  the  most  cunning, 
wicked,  bold,  deep-laid  impositions  ever  palmed  upon  the 
world;  calculated  to  deceive  and  ruin  millions  who  will  sin- 
cerely receive  it  as  the  word  of  God,  and  will  suppose  them- 
selves securely  built  upon  the  rock  of  truth  until  they  are 
plunged,  with  their  families,  into  hopeless  despair. 

"The  nature  of  the  message  in  the  Book  of  Mormon  is 
such  that,  if  true,  no  one  can  possibly  be  saved  and  reject  it; 
if  false,  no  one  can  possibly  be  saved  and  receive  it.    There 


fore,  every  soul  in  all  the  world  is  equally  interested  in 
ascertaining  its  truth  or  falsity.  In  a  matter  of  such  infinite 
importance,  no  person  should  rest  satisfied  with  the  conjec- 
tures or  opinions  of  others.  He  should  use  every  exertion 
himself  to  become  acquainted  with  the  nature  of  the  message; 
he  should  carefully  examine  the  evidences  of  which  it  is 
offered  to  the  world ;  he  should,  with  all  patience  and  perse 
verence,  seek  to  acquire  a  certain  knowledge  whether  it  be 
of  God  or  not. 

*'If,  after  a  rigid  examination,  it  be  found  an  imposition, 
it  should  be  extensively  published  to  the  world  as  such.  The 
evidence  and  arguments  upon  which  the  imposture  was 
detected  should  be  clearly  and  logically  stated,  that  those 
who  have  been  sincerely,  yet  unfortunately,  deceived  may 
perceive  the  nature  of  the  deception,  and  be  reclaimed,  and 
that  those  who  continue  to  publish  the  delusion  may  be 
exposed  and  silenced." — Introduction  to  ^'Divine  Authen- 
ticity of  the  Book  of  Mormon." 

This  Book  of  Mormon,  like  our  Bible,  is  made  up 
of  several  books,  some  fifteen  all  together,  purporting  to 
have  been  written  by  different  authors  extending  through 
a  period  of  looo  years,  beginning  600  years  before 
Christ  and  closing  400  years  after  Christ.  * 

It  records  the  history  of  a  small  colony,  embracing 
two  famihes,  who  left  the  City  of  Jerusalem  during  the 
reign  of  Zedekiah,  King  of  Judah,  600  years  before 
Christ;  wandered  for  a  time  in  the  Desert  of  Arabia, 
then  built  ships  of  a  peculiar  construction,  in  which 
they  embarked  and  were  drifted  across  the  Indian  Ocean, 
^ed  by  th^  hand  of  a  strange  Providence,  until  at  last, 
crossing  the  Pacific,  they  landed  on  the  shores  of  South 
America,  where  they  grew  into  a  numerous  and  wealthy 
people,  and  although  divided  into  two  rival  factions, 
they  continued  to  increase  until  they  had  spread  over 
the  greater  portion  of  North  and  South  America. 

About  150  years  before  Christ,  by  a  special  revela- 

*One  book,  the  "Book  of  Ether,"  professes  to  be  a  compilation,  by  the 

'  Prophet    Moroni,    from    twenty-four    ancient   plates,  purporting-   to    be    the 

record  of  a  people  who  came  over  to  this  country  directly  after  the  "  Confusion 

of  tongues,*'  as  recorded  in  Gen.  ii,  1-9,  and  lived  and  flourished  here  for  over 

1000  years,  and  were  then  utterly  exterminated. 


9 

tlon  from  heaven,  a  Christian  Church  was  organized, 
and  the  ordinance  of  baptism  administered  by  immersion. 
Churches  rapidly  multiplied,  and  the  truth  continued  to 
extend  until  it  controlled  in  a  measure  the  destinies  of 
the  whole  people. 

A  few  days  after  Jesus'  crucifixion  and  resurrection 
in  Jerusalem^  as  recorded  in  the  New  Testament,  he 
appeared  in  person  to  the  churches  and  the  people  on 
this  continent;  remained  with  them  forty  days,  preaching 
the  gospel,  performing  a  multitude  of  strange  miracles, 
establishing  the  faith  of  his  people,  &c.  But  after  he 
left  them  there  was  a  sad  apostacy  from  the  faith; 
dissensions  and  differences  increased,  wars  bitter  and 
relentless  occured.  Matters  grew  worse  and  worse  until, 
in  the  year  A.  D.  384,  the  entire  population  of  the  two 
continents  met  in  deadly  conflict  around  the  sacred  hill 
Cumorah,  and  one  of  the  most  sanguinary  battles  that 
the  pages  of  history  anywhere  records  resulted  in  the 
complete  annihilation  of  the  one  party  by  the  destruction 
of  their  230,000  warriors,  and  the  closing  up  of  the 
divinely  inspired  records,  and  the  hiding  ^^of  the  plates 
containing  the  Book  of  Mormon,  where  they  remained 
for  a  period  of  1400  years,  until  Joseph  Smith,  by  the 
direction  of  the  resurrected  Moroni,  found  their  hiding 
place  and  brought  them  forth  to  the  world. 

On  May  8,  1838,  Joseph  Smith,  when  asked,  ''How 
and  where  did  you  obtain  the  Book  ot  Mormon?  "  gave 
this  answer: 

"  Moroni,  who  deposited  the  plates  (from  whence  the 
Book  of  Mormon  was  translated,)  in  a  hill  in  Manchester, 
Ontario  County,  New  York,  bfeing  dead  and  raised  again 
therefrom,  appeared  unto  me,  and  told  me  where  they  were, 
and  gave  me  directions  how  to  obtain  them.  I  obtained 
them,  and  the  Urim  and  Thummim  with  them,  by  means  of 
which  I  translated  the  plates.  And  thus  came  the  Book  of 
Mormon.''— "Compendium,"  p.  305. 


lO 

In  inviting  your  attention,  to-night,  to  a  candid  and 
careful  examination  of  the  claims  of  the  Book  of  Mormon 
to  divine  inspiration,  I  ask,  friends,  first  of  all,  that 
you  will  listen  to  the  considerations  I  present  with  the 
same  candor  and  earnest  desire  to  know  the  truth  that 
I  myself  have  constantly  sought  to  cherish  in  the 
preparation.  It  is  in  my  nature  to  be  charitable,  to 
take  the  side  of  the  weakest;  to  feel  a  profound  sympathy 
for  the  oppressed,  the  maligned,  the  persecuted.  When 
therefore  I  began  the  study  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  I 
brought  to  it  an  honest  desire  to  know  the  truth,  and  a 
full  determination  to  judge  it  with  all  possible  charity, 
and  be  convinced  of  its  value,  its  true  inspiration,  if  I 
could  find  any  real  genuine  proofs  that  it  came  from 
God. 

And  yet  it  is  due  you,  and  but  the  part  of  candor  to 
confess,  that  a  long  and  patient  study  of  the  proofs  of 
the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Bible — a  careful  examination 
of  many  of  the  objections  infidels  and  sceptics  during  the 
ages  past  have  urged  against  it — have  made  me  perhaps 
somewhat  mdre  critical  and  exacti?ig  in  my  demands 
than  I  otherwise  might  have  been.  I  cannot  accept 
anything  as  inspired  of  God  unless  the  plain  marks  of 
inspiration  are  found  upon  it.  God's  finger-marks  must 
be  clearly  visible. 

The  ground  taken  is  this:  God  does  not  do  things 
as  men  do.  He  stamps  himself,  his  own  infinite  perfect- 
ions upon  everything  he  undertakes.  He  never  does 
things  by  halves,  never  bungles  or  makes  mistakes. 
Whether  he  creates  a  mountain  or  the  tiniest  insect, 
whether  a  blade  of  grass  or  a  drop  of  water,  he  displays 
a  wisdom,  a  skill,  a  perfection  utterly  beyond  the  reach 
of  fallible,  blundering,  imperfect  man.  He  makes  no 
blunders,    his   finger-marks   are   perfection — ^'All    his 


II 

works  praise  him," — and  no  exception  to  this  statement 
is  possible. 

A?id  so  his  fi^iger-marks  are  seen,  must  be  seen  in 
every  word  he  inspires.  Whether  he  records  a  history, 
utters  a  prophecy,  or  inspires  a  proverb  or  a  psalm,  he 
does  it  in  a  way  that  is  like  himself;  he  stamps  his  own 
infinite  nature  upon  it,  so  that  the  words  of  the  psalmist 
are  always  found  true:  ''Thy  testimonies  are  wonder- 
ful." ''Every  word  of  God  is  pure,"  pure  "as  silver, 
tried  in  a  furnace  of  earth,  purified  seven  times" 
language  that  cannot  possibly  be  true  of  any  merely 
human  production.  So  completely  is  this  true  of  the 
Bible,  dear  friends,  that  one  rule  all  the  best  critics  in  the 
world  have  been  forced  to  adopt  is  this:  ''  Every  book 
in  the  Bible,  to  be  accepted  as  divine,  must,  in  its  style 
of  composition,  in  its  contents,  its  general  make  up,  be 
such  as  no  man  on  earth,  or  any  number  of  men,  could 
possibly  compose.  " 

Any  book,  therefore,  to  secure  recognition  and 
reverence  as  from  God,  should  plainly  reveal  God's 
finger-marks  in  its  every  part.  No  awkward  blundering, 
no  stooping  to  slang  phrases,  no  exhibition  of  human 
weaknesses  in  any  direction.  Every  word  of  it  that 
purports  to  come  from  him,  every  thought  that  express- 
es his  thought,  must  be  as  pure  as  perfection  itself,  or  it 
could  not  have  come  from  that  fountain  of  purity,  ' '  as 
silver  purified  seven  times,"  until  every  particle  of  dross 
has  been  eliminated.  And  permit  me  to  say,  friends, 
every  book  in  the  Bible  has  a  thousand  times  over 
during  the  ages  past  been  subjected  to  this  severe  ordeal, 
and  has  come  out  of  every  trial  ' '  without  the  smell  of 
iire ' '  upon  its  fair  pages. 

If  then,  the  Book  of  Mormon,  upon  a  candid  and 
careful  examination  shall  be  able  to  pass  this  searching 


12 

test;  if  its  style  of  composition  is  such  that  no  man  on 
earth  could  have  produced  it;  if  its  contents  continually 
breathe  the  atmosphere  of  the  Infinite  One — the  pure 
and  holy  God;  if  there  is  nothing  foolish  in  it/ no 
mistakes,  no  exhibition  of  the  common  weaknesses  and 
frailties  of  our  poor,  weak,  perverted  human  natures;  if, 
when  it  is  carefully  dissected,  as  one  would  dissect,  with 
a  microscope,  a  blade  of  grass,  or  a  drop  of  water,  or  a 
•grain  of  sand,  a  wonderful  completion  and  perfection  is 
everywhere  displayed,  then  I  shall  be  bound  to  accept 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  as  I  am  bound  for  the  same 
reason  to  accept  every  book  in  this  Book  of  Books  as 
the  direct  offspring  of  God  himself  Let  me  then,  to- 
night, very  briefly  call  your  attention  to  one  strange 
peculiarity  of  the  Bible  that  stamps  it  as  divine,  and 
then  briefly  examine  the  Book  of  Mormon  to  see 
whether  it  exhibits  the  same  marks  of  the  divine  hand. 
Suppose  you  pick  up  a  blade  of  grass  or  a  kernel  of 
wheat,  or  a  simple  hair,  falling  from  the  head,  or  a 
single  drop  of  water,  and  look  at  it.  At  flrst  you  will 
say  ''What  of  it?  I  see  nothing  strange,  nothing  divine 
in  this  little  affair."  But  begin  carefully  to  study  it. 
Take  your  microscope  and  dissect  it,  and  you  shall  be 
astonished  at  the  revelations  made.  Almost  a  thousand 
evidences  of  the  handiwork  of  God,  as  completely 
beyond  the  wisdom  and  skill  and  power  of  men  as  is  the 
creation  of  a  world.  So,  if  you  please,  turn  at  random 
to  any  one  of  the  short  historical  incidents  found  in  the 
Bible,  and  read  it  over.  At  first  reading,  you  may 
notice  nothing  at  all  peculiar  about  it.  Its  plain,  simple, 
nothing  constrained  or  studied,  no  effort  at  crispness  or 
sharpness,  or  condensation;  no  attempt  at  oratorical  or 
rhetorical  display,  no  embellishments  of  any  kind.  A 
simple,  straightforward,  matter  of  fact  statement.     And 


13 

you  say,  ^' There' vS  nothing  strange  about  that.  Any 
one  could  write  after  that  fashion."  But  wait  a  Httle. 
Study  this  Httle  incident  carefully,  and  presently  you  will 
begin  to  discern  some  strange  things  about  it. 

I  have  read  the  life  of  Washington,  the  father  of  our 
country — presume  I  have  read  enough  about  him  to  fill 
a  good  sized  volume;  possibly  several  volumes.  In  the 
Bible  I  have  read  a  few  short  statements  about  the 
Patriarch  Abraham.  Probably  not  over  four  or  five 
pages,  all  told,  tell  us  all  we  knew  about  Abraham. 
And  yet  if  called  upon  to  describe  the  characters  of  the 
two  men  I  should  feel  more  at  home  with  Abraham 
than  Washington ;  seem  better  acquainted,  really  know 
more  of  him,  and  why  ?  Because  in  those  few  incidents 
of  Bible  history  is  a  better,  more  complete  and  compre- 
hensive delineation  of  character  than  in  all  the  volumes 
written  about  Washington. 

Try  an  experiment:  Procure  a  correct  history  of 
the  United  States,  and  read  the  long  chapter  of  fifty 
pages  that  describes  the  traitorous  plot  of  Arnold  when 
he  sought  to  deliver  a  division  of  our  army  into  the 
hands  of  the  British.  Then  take  your  New  Testament 
and  read  the  ten  or  dozen  verses  that  tell  us  all  we 
know  of  the  traitor  Judas  Iscariot,  and  when  done  see  if 
you  do  not  feel  better  acquainted  with  the  true  character 
of  Judas,  really  knew  more  about  him  than  about 
Arnold. 

Read  carefully  through  a  well  written  life  of  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte;  occupy  a  week,  or  a  month  if  necessary, 
in  a  careful  study  of  the  man,  his  character  and  moral 
worth.  Then  turn  to  2nd  Chron.,  28  chapter,  and  read 
twenty  verses  about  King  Ahaz  and  his  people.  Spend 
one  or  two  hours  only  in  reading  and  rereading,  and 
then  take  up  your  pen  and  see  which  of  the  two  you  can 


14 

write  about  with  the  greatest  clearness  and  definiteness. 
A  few  such  experiments  as  this  will  satisfy  you  that 
there  is  a  wonderful  difference  between  the  Bible  and 
every  other  book  in  this  respect.  A  few  verses  will 
draw  out  a  man's  character  to  the  very  life,  proving  the 
assertion  of  the  Apostle  true:  "The  word  of  God  is 
quick  and  powerful,  sharper  than  any  two  edged  sword, 
piercing  even  to  the  dividing  asunder  of  soul  and  spirit, 
*  *  *  and  is  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of 
the  heart." 

As  the  skillful  artist  will  sometimes,  by  a  few  master- 
strokes of  his  brush,  produce  a  picture  that  seems  almost 
to  live  and  breathe  before  you,  so  a  few  master-strokes 
from  God's  pen  will  probe  to  the  bottom  of  the  human 
heart,  unmask  the  moral  character,  and  hold  it  up 
naked  and  uncovered  where  all  the  world  can  behold  it. 

But  the  same  wonderful  peculiarity  can  be  seen  in 
other  things  besides  description  of  character.  The  his- 
tories furnished  are  just  so  concise  and  comprehensive. 
A  single  verse  often  will  tell  of  a  long  and  bloody  battle. 
The  transactions  of  a  whole  campaign  are  crowded  into 
a  few  sentences.  And  yet  the  discription  is  simplicity 
itself— not  the  least  appearance  of  crowding,  no  seeming 
effort  at  condensation  or  brevity.  There  is  nothing  that 
can  at  all  equal  this  in  the  history  of  man.  Imagine  a 
poor  cripple  made  whole  by  a  miracle.  Take  pen  and 
paper  and  attempt  a  discripuon.  Give  a  touching 
account  of  the  poor  cripple's  previous  history,  the  time 
and  place  of  the  occurrence;  describe  all  the  circum- 
stances attending  the  miracle,  who  performed  it,  how  it 
was  done,  what  people  thought  of  it,  and  how  the  cripple 
was  affected  by  it.  Describe  the  whole  in  as  few  words 
as  possible,  without  copying  from  the  Bible,  and  if  you 
compress  your  story  into  five  or  six  pages  you  will  do 


15 

remarkably  well.  But  in  the  New  Testament  such  a 
scene  is  fully  and  completely  described  in  five  short 
verses. 

The  life  and  character  and  times  of  the  most  remark- 
able and  important  personage  that  has  ever  appeared  on 
earth,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  is,  by  Matthew  beautifully 
and  clearly  exhibited  in  the  small  compass  of  thirty-one 
pages  print.  And  be  it  remembered,  Matthew  was  an 
unlettered  man,  not  at  all  used  to  writing.  This  book, 
his  first  and  last  attempt,  so  far  as  we  know.  But 
Washington  Irving  was  one  of  the  most  learned  and 
excellent  writers  the  world  has  ever  seen — had  practiced 
writing  and  the  art  of  condensing  all  his  life,  and  yet 
he  could  not  exhibit  the  life  and  character  and  times  of 
George  Washington  short  of  five  or  six  octavo  volumes. 

D'Aubeigne  has  written  the  history  of  the  great 
reformation  in  Germany  in  Jive  large  volumes.  Luke,  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  has  furnished  us  the  history  of 
quite  as  extensive  a  reformation  in  thirty -three  pages. 
And  in  fact,  friends,  this  wonderful  comprehensiveness, 
this  strange  tact  at  compression,  this  unapproachable 
ability  to  say  a  great  deal  in  a  few  words,  prevails  all 
through  the  Bible.  It's  one  of  God's  finger-marks — 
precisely  what  we  might  expect  from  a  being  of  infinite 
perfections.  Why,  dear  friends,  I  can  safely  challenge 
all  the  doctors  of  divinity,  or  skilled  writers  of  the 
present  age,  to  crowd  into  ten  pages  every  thought  and 
sentiment  and  inference  the  Apostle  Paul,  with  the 
greatest  grace  and  simplicity,  puts  into  one  page. 

A  young  man  in  old  Dr.  Wayland's  class,  once 
flippantly  remarked  about  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon, 
which  they  happened  to  be  studying:  ''Why  it's  easy 
enough  to  vjxiX.^ proverb s\  anybody  could  do  that."  Th^ 
Doctor  simply  replied:  'Try  a  few." 


i6 

Try  your  hand,  friends,  at  writing  history,  or  biog- 
raphy, or  doctrine,  or  parable,  or  proverb,  and  place 
your  production  along  side  of  God's;  and  I'll  abide  the 
result,  yourself  being  the  judge.  One  of  our  poets  has 
sung: 

"Let  all  the  heathen  writers  join 

To  form  one  perfect  book : 
Great  God,  when  once  compared  with  thine, 

How  mean  their  writings  look  I" 

Look  at  the  discourses  of  our  Lord,  any  one  of  them 
-  —the  Lord's  prayer,  if  you  please;  or  the  whole  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  Surely  * 'never  man  spake  like  this 
man."  The  first  eight  sentences  of  that  sermon  on  the 
mount  are  by  universal  consent  placed  above  any  other 
eight  sentences  ever  spoken  by  mortal  lips.  Friend 
and  foe,  infidel,  atheist  and  christian,  have  from  the 
first  acknowledged  that  these  verses  stand  alone  amid 
all  the  literature  of  earth,  unapproached  and  unapproach- 
able, not  more  in  their  comprehensiveness  and  sublimity 
than  in  their  beautiful  simplicity: 

"Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit,  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven. 

"Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth. 

"Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness, for  they  shall  be  filled. 

"Blessed  are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy. 

"Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God," 
&c.,  &c. 

And,  please  reflect,  that  sermon  was  an  extempora- 
neous, impromptu  discourse,  and  the  first  extended  ser- 
mon, so  far  as  we  know,  preached  by  the  man  Christ 
Jesus — a  young  man,  only  thirty  years  old,  who  had 
never  been  in  the  schools,  not  even  in  the  common 
schools;  never  studied  the  art  of  composition,  or  prac- 
ticed compression.  But  he  opens  his  mouth,  and  from 
his  lips  flow  words  so  divine,  both  in  the  thought  and 


17 

in  the  style  of  expression,  that  they  have  never 
been  approached  by  mortal  man.  And  the  wonder 
is  only  increased  when  we  reflect,  it  is  the  pen  of 
Matthew  the  publican  that  records  this  sermon,  some 
tiventy-five  or  thirty  years  after  it  was  preached.  If 
Matthew  remembered  the  exact  words  of  the  Savior,  and 
wrote  just  as  first  spoken,  it  was  a  wonderful  miracle  of 
viemory.  If  he  only  remembered  the  substance  of  the 
sermon,  and  clothed  Jesus'  thought  in  his  own  language, 
then  we  have  a  still  greater  miracle  to  account  for  : — an 
ignorant^  U7ilettered  publican^  almost  infinitely  outstrip- 
ping all  the  skilled  writers  on  4arth  I 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  illustrations  of  this 
thought,  for  the  whole  Bible  in  its  every  part  is  an  illus- 
tration. In  fact,  friends,  if  any  portion  of  the  Bible,  any 
book  in  it,  should  fail  to  exhibit  'clearly  and  truly  these 
necessary  and  reasonable  credentials  of  the  divine  hand, 
it  would  be  reason  enough  for  rejecting  it  and  denying  it 
a  place  in  the  scriptures  of  truth ;  for,  according  to  the 
test  of  our  text,  all  the  words  of  the  Lord  should  be 
^'pure  words  ;'*  as  ''silver  tried  in  a  furnace  of  earth, 
purified  seven  times. ' ' 


And  now,  let  us  very  briefly,  and  yet  carefully  and 
honestly,  apply  this  test  of  divinity  to  the  Book  of 
Mormon. 

The  time  is  so  limited  that  we  shall  be  able  to  ex- 
amine only  two  or  three  brief  specimens  to  night.  But, 
the  subject  will  be  continued,  for  I  do  not  design  to 
allow  even  the  suspicion  of  unfairness  in  the  selection  of 
specimens. 

I  opened  the  Book  of  Mormon  at  random  the  other 
day,  to  the  i  loth  page  and  read  from  2nd  Nephi,  14, 
10,  the  following  sentences : 


"And  now  I,  Nephi,  must  make  an  end  of  my  prophesy- 
ing unto  you,  my  beloved  brethren.  And  I  cannot  write  but 
a  few  things, which  I  know  must  surely  come  to  pass.  Where- 
fore, the  things  which  I  have  written  sufficeth  me,  save  it  be 
a  few  words  which  I  must  speak  concerning  the  doctrine  of 
Christ ;  wherefore,  I  shall  speak  unto  you  plainly,  according 
to  the  plainness  of  my  prophesying." 

Have  read  you  sixty-nine  words. 

And,  now,  friends,  I  am  not  gifted  at  all  in  the  art  of 
condensing — have  had  very  little  practice  or  culture  in 
that  direction.  Multitudes  of  writers  can  easily  ''beat 
me  by  half"  In  the  present  case,  I  have  used  the  au- 
thor's words  almost  exclusively,  simply  leaving  out  the 
inelegant  and  uncalled  for  repetitions,  the  unnecessary 
verbiage,  &c.,  and  yet  preserving  every  thought  of  the 
writer  in  a  much  simpler,  neater,  and  better  constructed 
sentence  of  only  thirty-two  words,  as  follows: 

"And  now  I,  Nephi,  must  close  my  prophesying,  with  a 
few  words  plainly  spoken,  according  to  my  custom,  concern- 
ing the  doctrine  of  Christ ;  words  which  I  know  must  surely 
come  to  pass  "  » 

I  turn  again  to  page  318  and  read  from  Book  of 
Alma,  19,  4-5  : 

"Now,  I  unfold  unto  you  a  mystery;  nevertheless,  there 
are  many  mysteries  which  are  kept  that  no  one  knoweth 
them,  save  God  himself.  But  I  show  unto  you  one  thing, 
which  I  have  inquired  diligently  of  God,  that  I  migthtknow, 
that  is  concerning  the  resurrection.  Behold,  there  is  a  time 
appointed  that  all  shall  come  forth  from  the  dead.  Now, 
when  this  time  cometh,  no  one  knows  ;  but  God  knoweth  the 
time  which  is  appointed.  Now,  whether  there  shall  be  one 
time,  or  a  second  time,  or  a  third  time,  that  men  shall  come 
forth  from  the  dead,  it  mattereth  not ,  for  God  knoweth  all 
these  things  ;  and  it  sufficeth  me  to  know  that  this  is  the  case; 
that  there  is  a  time  appointed  that  all  shall  rise  from  the 
dead.  Now,  there  must  needs  be  a  space  betwix  the  time  of 
death,  and  the  time  of  the  resurrection. 

And  now  I  would  enquire  what  becometh  of  the  souls 
of  men  from  this  time  of  death  to  the  time  appointed  for  the 
resurrection?  Now,  whether  there  is  more  than  one  time  ap- 
pointed for  man  to  rise,  it  mattereth  not ;  for  all  do  not  die 


19 

at  once  :  and  this  mattereth  not ;  all  is  as  one  day  with  God, 
and  time  only  is  measured  unto  men  ;  therefore,  there  is  a 
time  appointed  unto  men  that  they  shall  rise  from  the  dead; 
and  there  is  a  space  between  the  time  of  death  and  the  res- 
urrection. And  now  concerning  this  space  of  time,  what 
becometh  of  the  souls  of  men  is  the  thing  which  I  have 
enquired  dilligently  of  the  Lord  to  know;  and  this  is  the 
thing  of  which  I  do  know;  Ana  when  the  time  cometh  when 
all  shall  rise,  then  shall  they  know  that  God  knoweth  all  the 
times  which  are  appointed  unto  men.  Now,  concerning  the 
state  of  the  soul  between  death  and  the  resurrection :  Be- 
hold, it  has  been  made  known  unto  me,  by  an  angel,  that  the 
spirits  of  all  men,  as  soon  as  they  are  departed  from  the  mor- 
tal bodj',  yea,  the  spirits  of  all  men,  whether  they  be  good  or 
evil,  are  taken  home  to  that  God  who  gave  them  life." 

Have  read  you  in  all  365  words. 

Now,  please  carefully  observe  that  I  include 
every  thought  and  even  hint  of  the  author,  and  yet  con- 
dense into  142  words  everything  he  has  said  in  365  words: 

"There  are  many  mysteries,  which  only  God  may  know; 
but,  having  inquired  diligently  of  him,  he  permits  me  to  unfold 
unto  you  a  mystery  concerning  the  resurrection.  Behold,there 
is  a  time  appointed,  known  only  to  God,  when  all  shall  come 
forth  from  the  dead  ;  whether  all  at  the  same  time,  or  at  diff- 
ernt  times,  it  does  not  matter,  God  knows  and  that  is  suffi- 
cient ;  all  do  not  die  at  once  ;  time  is  measured  unto  man, 
but  with  God  all  is  as  one  day.  And  when  the  resurrection 
Cometh,  then  all  shall  know  that  God  knoweth  all  the  times 
which  are  appointed  unto  man. 

"Behold,  it  has  been  made  known  unto  me  by  an  angel, 
that  the  spirits  of  all  men,  as  soon  as  they  are  departed  from 
this  mortal*  body,  whether  good  or  evil,  are  taken  home  to 
that  God  who  gave  them  life." 

These  are  still  awkwardly  expressed  sentences.  If 
we  should  ignore  the  author's  language  and  his  unnat- 
ural arrangement,  treating  of  the  resurrection  before  he 
treats  of  the  intermediate  state,  we  might  put  his  thoughts 
in  a  still  briefer  compass,  somewhat  as  follows : 

"There  are  many  mysteries  known  only  to  God  ;  but, 
having  earnestly  asked  him,  he  has  revealed  to  me  through 
an  angel,  the  following  glorious  facts: 

"First — that   the  spirits   of    all    men,  good   and   evil, 


20 

when  they  depart  from  this  mortal  body,  are  immediately 
taken  home  to  the  God  who  gave  them  life. 

* 'Second— as  to  the  time  of  the  final  resurrection  from 
the  dead,  it  is  not  known  to  us  whether  all  are  to  be  raised 
at  the  same  time,  or  at  different  times;  but,  when  it  finally 
occurs,  then  we  shall  know  that  God  knew  all  about  it." 

This,  as  you  can  readily  see,  is  the  substance  of  the 
above  immense  revelation  that  required  the  help  of  an 
angel  of  God  ;  and  that  occupies  nearly  a  full  page  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon. 

Once  more,  let  me  read  you  a  sentence  upon  page 
224,  Book  of  Alma,  3,  7. 

"And  now  I  say  unto  you,  that  this  is  the  order  after 
which  I  am  called:  yea,  to  preach  unto  my  beloved  brethren; 
yea,  and  every  one  that  dwelleth  in  the  land ;  yea,  to  preach 
unto  all,  both  old  and  young,  both  bond  and  free: 
yea,  I  say  unto  you  the  aged,  and  also  the  middle  aged,  and 
the  rising  generation;  yea,  to  cry  unto  them  that  they  must 
repent  and  be  born  again;  yea,  thus  saith  the  spirit,  repent, 
all  ye  eads  of  the  earth,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  soon  at 
hand ;  yea,  the  Bon  of  God  cometh  in  his  glory,  in  his  might 
majesty,  power  and  dominion.  Yea,  my  beloved  brethren, 
I  say  unto  you,  that  the  spirit  saith,  behold  the  glory  of  the 
king  of  all  the  earth;  and  also  the  king  of  heaven  shall  veiy 
soon  shine  forth  among  all  the  children  of  men:  and  also  the 
spirit  saith  unto  me,  yea,  crieth  unto  me  with  a  mighty  voice, 
saying,  ge  forth  and  say  unto  this  people,  repent,  for  except 
ye  repent  ye  can  in  nowise  inherit  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

I  ask  you,  friends,  what  has  the  author  said  in  all 

these  187  words?  Only  this  : — 

"I  am  commissioned  by  the  spirit,  speaking  in  thunder 
tones,  to  preach  repentance  to  my  brethren,  and  to  all  the 
people  of  the  land,  because  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand, 
when  the  Son  of  God,  king  of  earth  and  heaven,  cometh  in 
majesty  and  glory."    Forty-seven  instead  of  187  words. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  blunders  in  composi- 
tion, awkward  and  uncalled  for  repetitions,  sentences 
constructed  in  defiance  of  all  rhetorical  rules,  often  cov- 
ering up  and  obscuring  the  thought  of  the  author,  must 
all  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  Joseph  Smith  was  an  un- 
educated and  unlettered  youth. 


21 

But,  please  reflect  a  moment.  These  sentences  are, 
professedly,  a  translation  of  an  ancient  record — trans- . 
feringto  our  language  words  and  thoughts  already  written 
in  an  ancient  tongue.  In  such  a  translation  the  trans- 
lator ^  if  he  is  a  poor  English  scholar,  may  misspell  the 
words  of  our  language;  he  may  easily  make  grammati- 
cal, mistakes  in  the  construction  of  his  sentences;  may 
use  unnecessary  words  in  the  expression  of  a  single 
thought;  but,  he  may  not  repeat  a. thought  three  or  four 
times  over,  as  in  the  above  examples,  except  those  repe- 
titions are  found  in  the  original ^  from  which  he  is  trafis- 
lathig.     For  instance,  in  the  last  quotation: 

"And  now  I  say  unto  you,  that  this  is  the  order  after 
which  I  am  called;  yea,  to  preach  unto  my  beloved  brethren; 
yea,  and  every  one  that  dwelleth  in  the  land." 

It  is  evident  there  must  have  been  something  en- 
graven upon  those  ancient  plates  containing  this  idea — 
that  he  was  commissioned  to  preach  to  all  his  brethren, 
and  to  every  person  dwelling  in  the  land. 

But  then,  there  must  have  been  added  to  this  first 
statement  something  in  those  ancient  plates  that  in- 
volved this  further  statement: 

"Yea,  to  preach  unto  all,  both  old  and  yeung,  both  bond 
and  free;" 

or  else  Joseph  Smith  added  it  without  authority,  and 
thus  trifled  with  his  readers.  And  the  same  is  true  of 
the  third  clause,  or  repetition: 

"Yea,  I  say  unto  you  the  aged,  and  also  the  middle  aged, 
and  the  rising  generation." 

Either  these  repetitions  were  found  upon  those  origi- 
nal plates,  or  they  were  added  by  Joseph  Smith  to  the 
translation.  If  they  were  added  by  Mr.  Smith,  then  he 
has  trifled  with  sacred  things,  committed  the  fearful  sin 


22 

of  adding  to  the  words  of  divine  revelation ;  loading 
down  God's  pure  words  with  so  much  useless  rubbish  as 
to  cast  doubt  and  discredit  upon  the  whole.  And,  if  he 
could  or  would  do  this  in  these  instances,  what  warrant 
have  we  that  he  has  not  freque7itly  done  it?  in  fact,  that 
the  whole  book  has  not  been  thus  altered  or  embellish- 
ed to  suit  his  own  fancies? 

But,  the  facts  are,  Joseph  Smith  did  not,  himself 
translate  a  single  sentence.  The  statements  of  the  eye- 
witnesses are  very  plain  upon  this  point: 

"And  we  know,  also,  that  they  have  been  translated  by 
the  gift  and^powerof  God. "^— The  "Three  Witnesses." 

"The  tablets,  or  plates  were  translated  by  Smith,  who 
used  a  small  oval,  or  kidney-shai>ed  stone,  called  Urim  and 
Thummim,  that  seemed  endowed  with  the  marvelous  power 
of  converting  the  characters  on  the  plates,  when  used  by 
Smith,  into  English."— David  Whitmer. 

"By  aid  of  the  seer-stone,  sentences  would  appear  and 
were  read  by  the  prophet  *  *  *  so  that  the  translation  was 
just  as  it  was  engraven  on  the  plates,  precisely  in  the  lang- 
uage then  used." — Martin  Harris. 

It  is  plain  from  these  statements  that  Joseph  Smith 
had  no  responsibility  whatever  as  to  the  wordin^^  of  the 
translation.  The  stone  itself  was  endowed  '  *by  the  gift 
of  God"  with  the  ''marvelous  power  of  converting  the 
characters  on  the  plates  into  English."  The  English 
*  'sentences  would  appear  on  the  stone  and  were  read  by 
the  prophet."  All  Mr.  Smith  had  to  do,  then,  was 
simply  to  read  what  appeared  on  the  stone. 

We  are  forced  therefore  to  the  conclusion  that  all 
these  senseless  repetitions,  this  worse  than  useless 
verbiage,  is  and  7nust  have  been  in  the  original  plates,  and 
not  at  all  the  result  of  Mr.  Smith's  ignorance  and  want 
of  culture. 

And  hence  we  must  call  in  question  the  divine 
inspiration  of  those  original  plates,   inasmuch  as   such 


23 

blundering  repetitions  are  directly  at  variance  with  all 
we  have  learned  of  God's  style  of  writing. 

If  it  be  said,  by  way  of  excuse  for  such  sins  against 
all  the  ordinary  rules  of  composition,  that  the  authors  of 
those  old  sentences  I  have  read  you,  Nephi  and  Alma, 
may  have  been  unlettered  men,  I  reply,  first:  These  men 
were  not  unlettered  men.  Nephi  claims  to  have  been 
taught  "in  all  the  learning"  of  his  father,  and  both  of 
them  were  the  leading  men,  the  best  posted  men  of  their 
times.  I  reply,  second:  Even  if  they  had  been  unlet- 
tered meh,  they  could  not  have  made  such  blunders 
had  they  been  inspired  of  God.  ^  Matthew,  the  publican, 
author  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  was  an  unletrered  man. 
Peter  and  James,  authorsof  three  epistles,  were  unlettered 
men.  John,  author  of  one  of  the  Gospels,  the  Book  of  Re- 
velation, and  three  brief  epistles,  was  an  unlettered  man, 
and  so  was  the  Lord  Jesus  himself  an  unlettered  man.  But 
where  in  all  their  writings  or  speeches  can  you  find  any 
such  egregious  blunders  in  composition  as  these  specimens 
from  the  Book  of  Mormon?  On  the  contrary,  under 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  they  made  most 
wonderful  use  of  the  Greek  language,  as  we  have  already 
learned,  exhibiting  a  style  so  terse  and  making  choice  of 
words  so  comprehensive,  that  they  have  never  been 
approached  by  the  most  skillful  writers  on  earth. 

So  far  then,  friends,  our  examination  is  absolutely 
against  the  inspiration  of  the  Book,  of  Mormon. 

The  specimens  examined  reveal  no  divine  finger- 
marks— they  only  equal  the  blundering  efforts  of  unlet- 
tered men.  But  we  have  only  examined  three  brief 
specimens;  these  may  prove  peculiar  exceptions.  We 
will  see  in  our.  next. 


LETCTURE   II. 


"For  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are 
your  ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord. 

"For  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are 
my  ways  higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your 
thoughts."    Isaiah  55:  8,  9. 

I  desire  at  the  beginning  of  the  lecture  this  evening 
to  make  plain  and  prominent  the  thought  presented  last 
Sabbath  evening,  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  must  be 
judged  by  the  same  tests  of  divinity  as  are  applied,  and 
have,  during  the  ages  past,  been  applied  to  the  Bible.  Jt 
must  bear  the  same  clear  impress  of  the  divine  hand  up- 
on its  pages,  or  we  cannot  accept  it  as  Irom  God. 

Last  Sabbath  evening  the  Bible  was  examined  as 
to  its  style  of  composition,  its  peculiar  way  of  saying  things. 
There  was  found  a  remarkable  terseness  and  comprehen- 
siveness. It  says  a  great  deal  in  a  few  words.  In  its  de- 
lineations of  character,  it  is  especially  so.  A  few  strokes 
rom  its  master  pen  will  lay  open  the  human  heart  to  its 
core,  giving  us  clearer  and  juster  views  of  a  man^s"  real 
character  than  any  human  writer  has  ever  been  able  to 
express  with  ten  times  the  number  of  words. 

The  same  strange  tact  at  compression,  ability  to  say 
a  great  deal  in  a  few  words,  and  yet  saying  it  with  won- 
derful simplicity  and  grace,  are  found  in  the  historical 
narratives  of  the  Bible.      Various  illustrations  of  this 


26 

were  given ;  and,  then,  specimen  passages  were  read 
from  the  Book  of  Mormon  that  not  only  failed  utterly 
to  come  up  to  the  divine  standard  of  terseness  and  com- 
prehensiveness of  statement,  but  that,  judged  even  by 
ordinary  human  standards,  exhibited  a  looseness,  a 
verbosity,  a  reckless  disregard  of  the  simplest  rules  of 
composition,  would  hardly  be  tolerated  in  a  common 
school  boy.  The  first  passage,  containing  sixty-nine 
words,  was  easily  compressed  into  a  sentence  of  thirty- 
two  words.  The  second  passage,  containing  365  words, 
had  228  words  left  out  of  it,  without  the  loss  of  a  single 
thought,  and  with  the  advantage  of  a  clearer  and  more 
vigorous  presentation  of  the  thoughts  of  the  author, 
while  the  substance  of  the  passage  was  presented  in  a 
still  briefer  form.  The  third  passage,  containing  187 
words,  was  easily  boiled  down  into  a  sentence  contain- 
ing forty-seven  words,  or  one  fourth  the  number  in  the 
book. 

•  But,  not  wishing  to  judge  the  whole  book  by  two  or 
three  brief  specimens  hastily  selected,  it  was  proposed  to 
continue  the  examination  this  evening  with  a  selection, 
covering  such  a  broad  range  as  to  give  us  a  fair  idea  of 
the  prevailing  style  of  the  entire  book. 

However,  to  make  the  examination  as  complete  and 
valuable  as  possible,  and  taking  for  granted  there  are 
many  here  to  night  who  were  not  here  last  Sabbath, 
it  is  proposed,  first,  to  spend  a  Httle  time  in  still  further 
illustrating  God's  strange  tact  at  compression,  his  pecu- 
liar way  of  saying  a  great  deal  in  a  few  words,  by  calling 
your  attention  to  a  specimen  recorded  in  the  seventh 
chapter  of  the  book  of  Daniel. 

In  a  vision  by  night,  the  prophet  Daniel  was  caused 
to  ^^^  four  great  beasts  come  out  of  the  sea,  diverse  one 


27 

from  the  other.  And,  in  the  explanation  of  the  vision, 
given  in  the  latter  part  of  the  same  chapter,  we  are  in- 
formed that  these  four  beasts  were  designed  to  represent 
four  different  kingdoms  that  were  to  arise,  one  after  the 
other.  First,  the  Chaldean,  or  Babylonian  ;  second,  the 
Persian,  or  Medo-Persian ;  third,  the  Macedonian;  and 
fourth,  the  Roman. 

At  the  time  this  vision  was  seen  by  Daniel,  the  first 
of  these  four  kingdoms,  the  Babylonian,  was  in  the 
height  of  her  glory  and  power.  She  stood  at  the  head 
of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  :  from  her  majesty  and 
beauty  and  power  she  was  called,  '  The  lady  of  king- 
doms, the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees  excellency,  and  the 
glory  of  the  whole  earth."  She  attained  her  position 
and  eminence  chiefly  through  the  energy  and  skill  of  her 
greatest  king,  Nebuchadnezzar.  With  great  rapidity 
he  subdued  the  nations  about  him,  pushing  his  conquests 
onward  until  proud  Tyre  fell,  Jerusalem  was  taken 
and  destroyed,  and  Egypt  became  a  tributary  province  ; 
and  no  nation  was  found  to  dispute  his  sway. 

But  the  riches  and  luxury  and  glory  brought  into 
Babylon  by  Nebuchadnezzar  became  the  means  of  des- 
truction to  his  successors.  They  became  effeminate  and 
weak ;  no  troubles  from  without  to  call  forth  the  energies 
and  power  of  the  nation;  king,  princes  and  people  gave 
themselves  to  ease  and  indulgence — the  enjoyment  of  their 
luxuries.  And,  so  effeminate  had  they  become  that,  when 
Cyrus,  king  of  Persia,  marched  against  Babylon,  they  were 
cowed  down  and  affrighted,  and  shut  themselves  up' 
closely  within  the  walls  of  their  great  city :  and,  during 
the  whole  siege  of  two  years,  dare  not  venture  out  and 
risk  a  batde  with  the  army  of  Cyrus. 

Now,  to  some,  it  may  not  appear  at  all  singular  or 


28 

strange  that  all  this  history  could  h^  fully  and  coynpletely 
expressed  iyi  one  short  verse.  But,  such  is  the  fact.  The 
first  beast  that  came  up  out  of  the  river,  representing  the 
Babylonian  monarchy,  is  thus  described  by  Daniel,  in 
the  fourth  verse: 

"The  jfirst  was  like  a  lion,  and  had  eagrle's  wings;  I  be- 
held till  the  wings  thereof  were  plucked  and  it  was  lifted  up 
from  the  earth,  and  made  stand  upon  the  feet  as  a  man,  and 
a  man^s  heart  was  given  to  it." 

Note  the  facts  brought  out  in  this  verse : 

First — the  Babylonian  monarchy  is  compared  to  a 
lion.  The  lion  is  the  king  of  all  wild  beasfe,  the 
most  majestic,  noble,  powerful  of  the  whole.  Such  was 
Babylon  under  Nebuchadnezzar,  the  first,  noblest,  strong- 
est of  the  nations.     But, 

Second — it  says,  the  Hon  had  eagle's  wiyigs.  The 
lion  is  itself  a  beast  of  prey,  representing  the  fact  of  his- 
tory that  Babylon  was  given  to  making  conquests,  sub- 
sisting upon  and  plundering  the  nations  about  her.  But, 
this  was  not  enough,  the  lion  had  wings  to  show  that  the 
conquests  of  Nebuchadnezzar  were  Tuore  rapid  than  or- 
dinary.    He  almost T^^ze^  from  one  conquest  to  another. 

But,  says  Daniel,  '*I  beheld  till  the  wings  thereof 
were  plucked,  and  it  was  lifted  from  the  earth,  and  made 
stand  upon  the  feet  as  a  man,  and  a  man's  heart  was 
given  to  it."  As  we  have  learned,  after  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, the  Babylonian  monarchy,  ceased  its  conquests,  and 
its  power  began  to  wane.  'Tts  wings  were  plucked." 
•  Not  only  so,  there  was  eventually  such  a  complete  change 
that  its  desires  for  conquest  were  all  gone,  and  it  became 
so  effeminate,  and  so  much  given  to  indulgence  that  a 
ravenous  beast  of  prey  would  no  longer  fitly  represent 
its  character.     H^nce  Daniel  saw  the  lion  lifted  up  and 


29 

changed   so    completely    in    its  nature   that     a  man's 
heart  was  given  to  it. 

"The  first  was  like  a  lion,  and  had  eagle's  wings:  I  be- 
held till  the  wings  thereof  were  plucked,  and  it  was  lift- 
ed up  from  the  earth,  and  made  stand  upon  the  feet  as  a  man, 
and  a  man's  heart  was  given  to  it." 

Who  could  imagine  that  so  much  correct  history 
could  be  crowded  into  one  short  verse?  But,  friends, 
you  can  find  a  great  many  such  wonders  in  the  Bible ;  it 
is  God's  way  of  writing. 

The  next  verse,  the  fifth,  is  equally  remarkable: 

"And  beheld  another  beast,  a  second,  like  to  a  bear;  and 
it  raised  up  itself  on  one  side,  and  it  had  three  ribs  in  the 
mouth  of  it,  between  the  teeth  of  it;  and  they  said  thus  unto 
it,  arise,  devour  much  flesh." 

This  second  beast  represents  the  Persian  monarchy, 
and  is  likened  to  a  bear,  not  a  lion  as  the  first.  The 
bear  has  less  strength,  less  majesty,  but  is  no  less  raven- 
ous than  the  lion.  Such  was  the  Persian  monarchy. 
After  the  lion,  or  Babylonian  monarchy,  had  lost  its  lion 
nature  and  been  given  a  man's  heart,  it  fell  an  easy  prey 
to  the  ravenous  bear,  the  Persians.  But,  it  says,  the 
bear  ''raised  up  itself  on  one  side."  This  refers  to  the 
historical  fact,  very  peculiar,  but  no  less  exactly  true, 
that  the  Persians  made  conquests  only  on  one  side  of 
them.  History  informs  us  that  Cyrus  and  his  successors 
never  penetrated  eastward  of  their  own  boundaries.  The 
countries  they  subdued  all  lay  to  the  west  of  Persia. 
That  is  west  of  a  north  and  south  line,  but  never  east. 

Further,  the  bear  had  ''three  ribs  in  its  mouth 
between  its  teeth, ' '  showing  not  only  its  ravenous  char- 
acter, but  exhibiting  proof  that  it  had  found  prey  and 
had  devoured  it.  The  Persians,  under  Cyrus  and  his  suc- 
cessors, succeeded  in  making  very  extensive  conquests 


30 

westward.  Lydia,  Chaldea  and  Egypt,  and  other  smaller 
nations,  were  devoured,  plundered  of  their  wealth  and 
left  bare  hke  bones.  And  these  conquests  only  stirred 
up  their  hearts  to  attempt  still  greater  conquests.  Hence, 
the  ribs  in  the  bear's  mouth  are  represented  as  saying, 
"arise,  devour  much  flesh.'' 

It  is  interesting  to  read  the  history  of  the  Persian 
kings  and  see  how  exactly  this  bear  represents  their 
character;  and  especially  how  hterally  the  last  phrase  in 
this  short  verse,  '  'arise,  devour  much  flesh, ' '  has  been 
fulfilled.  Cyrus  was  almost  constantly  in  war  until  his 
death,  which  occurred  on  the  battle  field  while  engaged 
with  a  wild  horde  of  barbarians,  living  to  the  north- 
west of  Persia,  about  the  Caspian  Sea. 

Cambyses  his  son,  called  in  the  Scriptures  Artaxer- 
xes,  was  still  more  ambitious  of  conquest,  and  far  more 
cruel.  He  came  into  Egypt  with  a  great  army  and  com- 
pletely destroyed  it;  laid  much  of  the  land  desolate,  and 
utterly  ruined  some  of  their  largest  and  most  magnificent 
cities.  After  ruining  Egypt,  he  carried  his  wars  into 
Ethiopia  and  Lydia,  then  back  into  Syria. 

Darius,  who  followed  him,  supposed  to  be  Ahasu- 
erus  of  the  book  of  Esther,  was  even  more  ambitious  and 
anxious  to  be  considered  a  hero,  and  obtain  universal 
dominion.  He  marched  a  numerous  army  far  into  the 
interior  of  Europe,  and  attempted  in  several  engage- 
ments to  subdue  the  Greeks.  But  failing  to  accomplish 
his  purpose,  he  was  so  exasperated  that  he  returned 
home  and  began  the  most  extensive  preparations  probab- 
ly ever  made  for  war.  For  three  years  all  Asia  west  of 
the  Tigris  river  was  in  commotion  and  busy  with  prepa- 
rations for  his  £reat  expedition,  when  death  put  an  end 
to  his  labors,  yet  not  an  end  to  his  plans  and  designs, 


31 

for  his  son,  Xerxes,  continued  the  same  preparations  for 
five  years  more,  and  then  marched  into  Greecia  with  the 
largest  army,  it  is  believed,  ever  collected  together.  The 
common  account  is,  that  it  consisted  of  three  million 
soldiers,  with  attendants,  servants,  women,  etc.,  swelling 
the  number  to  slmost^ve  millions  I 

Thus  was  Persia,  headed  by  her  kings,  a  great  '  'bear 
which  lifted  up  itself  on  one  side,  and  had  ribs  in  its 
mouth  between  its  teeth,  which  encouraged  it  to  arise,  de- 
vour much  flesh. ' '  ♦ 

But,  in  the  sixth  verse,  we  have  a  brief  outline  of  the 
third  nation  or  kingdom  that  came  into  power:  the 
Macedonian,  under  Alexander  the  Great. 

"After  this  I  beheld,  and  lo  another  like  a  leopard,  which 
had  upon  the  back  of  it  four  wings  of  a  fowl ;  the  beast  had 
also  four  heads;  and  dominion  was  given  to  it." 

This  verse  is  short,  but  it  tells  a  great  deal  of  his- 
tory. First,  it  says,  ''After  this,"  that  is,  after  the  vis- 
ion of  the  bear:  and,  according  to  history,  the  Macedon- 
ian empire  began  its  conquests  about  200  years  after  the 
Persian,  under  Cyrus.  Second,  this  third  kingdom  is 
compared  to  a  leopard.  The  leopard,  like  the  lion  and 
the  bear,  is  a  beast  of  prey,  but  differs  widely  from  them 
in  its  characteristic  traits.  It  belongs,  as  is  well  known, 
to  the  feline,  or  cat  tribe  of  animals,  and  very  much  re- 
sembles the  wild  cat  in  its  disposition.  It  is  fierce  and 
cruel,  but  is  especially  remarkable  for  its  fleetness  and 
its  peculiar  manner  of  watching,  like  the  cat,  for  its  prey, 
and  springing  out  upon  it  when  it  is  least  aware  of  dan- 
ger. 

Nothing  could  better  express  the  difference  between 
Alexander's  army  and  the  Persian  than  by  comparing 
the  one  to  a  leopard  and  the  other  to  a  bear.     The  bear 


32 

is  heavy,  clumsy  and  slow,  the  leopard  light,  agile  and 
swift  of  foot.  A  single  fact  will  sufficiently  illustrate  this 
difference.  Alexander's  army,  when  he  came  into  Persia, 
consisted  of  only  forty  thousand  infantry  and  seven 
thousand  cavalry.  And  yet,  so  active  and  rapid  was  he, 
that  with  this  small  army  he  conquered  all  the  then  known 
world.  The  king  of  Persia  came  out  against  him  with 
an  army  of  one  million  midiaXxy  and  forty  thousand  cav- 
alry; but  his  army  was  completely  routed,  and  all  Persia 
fell  into  Alexander's  hands.* 

But,  observe  again,  this  leopard  had  ''upon  the  back 
of  it  four  wings  of  a  fowl. "  Not  enough  to  compare  Alex- 
ander's army  to  one  of  the  fleetest,  most  active  and  crafty 
of  wild  beasts,  but  it  must  have  four  wings  to  assist  it  in 
darting  upon  its  prey,  and  in  flying  from  one  conquest 
to  another.  The  lion  had  two  wings,  but  this  beast  had 
four.  Nebuchadnezzar's  rapid  conquests  were  nothing 
to  be  compared  with  Alexander's.  The  world  has  never 
seen  his  like  before  or  since.  Julius  Caesar,  of  ancient 
Rome,  and  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  of  modern  France,  are 
the  only  two  characters  the  world  has  ever  produced 
who  can  at  all  bear  a  comparison  to  Alexander  as  a  rapid 
conqueror.  In  six  years  time  he  subdued  all  Asia 
Minor,  Syria,  Egypt,  Ethiopia,  Libya,  Arabia,  the  vast 
empire  of  Persia;  had  marched  his  victorious  army  into 
India,  penetrated  even  beyond  the  Ganges,  until  there 
was  not  a  nation  known  in  the  world  that  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge his  sway. 

But  notice  again,  it  says,  the  leopard  had  ''four 
heads."  Alexander  died  in  the  city  of  Babylon  at  the 
early  age  of  thirty-one  years,  and  his  vast  dominions 
descended  not  to  his  posterity,  but  were  divided  among 
his  four  chief  generals. 


33 

Selucus  Nicanor  had  Persia  and  the  East.  Perdicas, 
and  after  him  Antigonus,  had  Asia  Minor.  Cassander 
had  Macedonia;  and  Ptolemaus  had  Egypt.  And  these 
four  great  empires  remained  much  the  same  until  all 
were  conquered  by  the  Romans.  '  *  And  dominion  was 
given  to  it." 

Is  it  not  wonderful  that  God  could  cause  Daniel  to 
exhibit  so  much  future  important  history  in  a  verse  no 
longer  than  this: 

"After  this  I  beheld,  and  lo  another  like  a  leopard,  which 
had  upon  the  back  of  it  four  wings  of  a  fowl;  the  beast  had 
also  four  heads,  and  dominion  was  given  to  it." 

The  next  beast,  the/ourfk,  was  still  more  wonder- 
ful; it  was  ''  dreadful  and  terrible  and  strong  exceeding- 
ly." It  had  iron  teeth  and  nails  of  brass,  and  break  in 
pieces  and  trampled  under  foot  the  whole  earth. 

But  pardon  me,  friends,  for  trespassing  so  long  in 
presenting  these  specimens  of  God's  peculiar  style  of 
writing.  I  desire  to  convince  you  thoroughly,  and  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  a  question  that  God's  way  of  put- 
ting things  differs  in  a  remarkable  degree  from  ours,  prov- 
ing true  the  text,  "My  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts, 
neither  are  your  ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord ;  for  as  the 
heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth  so  are  my  ways  higher 
than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your  thoughts." 

And  please  bear  in  mind,  friends,  that  we  often  loose 
much  of  the  energy  and  pith  of  the  original  by  the  pov- 
erty of  our  language  to  exactly  express  it ;  or  perhaps  I 
should  say,  by  the  poverty  or  want  of  skill  on  the  part  of 
our  translators  to  choose  the  right  words  to  fully  express 
the  divine  thought  of  the  original.  For  instance,  the 
third  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  reads,  in  our  Eng- 
lish version,  ''And  God  said,  let  there  be  light,  and  there 


34 

was  light."  This  is  short,  expressive,  wonderfully  com- 
prehensive; but,  the  Hebrew  original  has  much  more 
life  and  energy  and  pith.  ''And  God  said,  light  be !" 
addressing  light  direcriy  in  the  imperative  mood,  com- 
manding it  to  come  forth  out  of  the  darkness.  ''Light 
be,  and  light  was ;"  the  light  obeyed  the  command  of  her 
sovereign  and  came  into  being.  My  attention  was  called 
the  past  week,  in  one  of  our  religious  papers,  to  a  pass- 
age in  Genesis,  49:  19,  which  reads  in  our  version,  "Gad, 
a  troop  shall  overcome  him,  but  he  shall  overcome  at  the 
last."  Thirteen  words  very  brief  and  comprehensive. 
But  in  the  original  Hebrew  there  are  only  six  words. 
The  word  Gad  itself  means  a  troop  or  trooper;  and  the 
phrase,  "shall  overcome  him,"  is  the  Hebrew  verb  from 
the  same  word  '' troop-''  and  so  a  literal  rendering  would 
be,  "Trooper,  a  troop  troops  him,  but  he  troops  last." 
So  very  comprehensive  and  full  of  pith  and  energy  and 
life  is  the  original  Hebrew  in  which  all  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  written.  In  the  verses  we  have  been  consider- 
ing, Daniel's  vision,  I  find  the  first  verse  mentioned  con- 
tains in  our  translation  forty -three  words ;  but,  in  the 
Hebrew,  there  are  only  twenty-one  words. 

Now,  if  we  had  been  favored  with  an  inspired  trans- 
lation of  our  Bible,  if  the  same  divine  mind  that  first  dic- 
tated these  terse  and  vigorous  and  wonderfully  compre- 
hensive words  had  also  dictated  the  translation,  giving  us 
the  benefit  of  his  infinite  skill  in  the  choice  of  words  and 
phrases  in  our  language  best  adapted  to  express  the  exact 
thought  of  the  original,  what  a  remarkable  book  this,  our 
Bible,  would  be  !  Every  word  chosen  in  infinite  wisdom; 
every  phrase  and  sentence  an  exact  reflection  of  God's 
thought ! 


35 

Well,  now,  if  I  understand  it,  this  is  precisely  what 
our  friends  claim  for  the  Book  of  Mormon.  Both  the 
original  composition  and  the  translation  were  under  the 
constant  direction  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  We  have  a  right, 
therefore,  have  we  not?  to  expect  and  demand  a  remark- 
able book  ;  a  book  whose  every  sentence  shall  reveal  in 
the  most  unmistakable  manner  the  divine  finger  marks. 

With  this,  therefore,  in  mind,  let  us  turn  to  the  Book 
of  Mormon  and  read  a  few  selections.  It  scarcely  matters 
where  we  open  the  book.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  selec- 
tion from  a  sermon,  or  address  of  king  Benjamin,  one 
of  the  most  earnest  and  d  evout  characters  appearing  in 
the  book,  who  declares,  too,  that  the  things  * 'which  I  shall 
tell  you  are  made  known  unto  me  by  an  angel  from 
Godr — Page  150.  And  again,  next  page,  *'And  now  I 
have  spoken  the  words  which  the  Lord  God  hath  com- 
manded me ;"  and,  still  again  repeated,  ''It  came  to  pass 
when  king  Benjamin  had  made  an  end  of  speaking  the 
words  which  had  been  delivered  unto  hint  by  the  angel  of 
the  Lord,''  With  this  very  clear  and  oft  repeated  claim 
to  inspiration,  even  to  the  selection  of  the  words  he  uses, 
let  me  read  you  a  few  sentences,  Book  of  Mosiah,  2:  2: 

"And  king  Benjamin  again  opened  his  mouth,  and  be- 
gan to  speak  unto  them,  saying,  my  friends  and  my  brethren, 
my  kindred  and  my  people,  I  would  again  call  your  attention, 
that  ye  may  hear  and  understand  the  remainder  of  my  words 
which  I  shall  speak  unto  you;  for  behold,  if  the  knowledge  of 
the  goodness  of  God  at  this  time  has  awakened  you  to  a  sense 
of  your  nothingness,  and  your  worthless  and  fallen  state;" — 

As  I  read,  I  desire  you  will  constantly  challenge 
each  statement  or  sentence  with  this  question:  What  is 
there  about  this  sentence  that  requires  extraordinary  help 
from  God.  It  is  good,  perhaps  very  good,  but  did  the 
author  need  any  special  help  from  an  angel  to  say  it? 


36 

"I  say  unto  you,  if  ye  have  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
goodness  of  God,  and  his  matchless  power,  and  his  wisdom, 
and  his  patience,  and  his  long  suffering  towards  the  children 
of  men,  and  also,  the  atonement  which  has  been  prepared 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  that  thereby  salvation  might 
come  to  him  that  put  his  trust  in  the  Lord,  and  should  be  dil- 
igent in  keeping  his  commandments,  and  continue  in  the  faith 
even  unto  the  end  of  his  life;  I  mean  the  life  of  the  mortal  body ; 
I  say,  that  this  is  the  man  who  receiveth  salvation,  through 
the  atonement  which  was  prepared  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world  for  all  mankind,  which  ever  were,  ever  since  the 
fall  of  Adam,  or  who  are  or  who  ever  shall  be,  even  unto  the 
end  of  the  world;  and  this  is  the  means  whereby  salvation 
Cometh.  And  there  is  none  other  salvation  save  this  which 
hath  been  spoken  of;  neither  are  there  any  conditions  where- 
by man  can  be  saved,  except  the  conditions  which  I  have  told 
you."  ■ 

I  ask  again,  friends,  did  die  author  need  any  special 
help  from  God  to  say  any  part  of  the  above?  Have  you  not 
heard  preachers,  by  the  hundred,  in  your  day  talk  just 
like  that,  and,  too,  without  any  special  assistance  from 
an  angel? 

"And  again  I  say  unto  you  as  I  have  said  before,  that  as 
ye  have  come  to  the  knowledere  of  the  glory  of  God,  or  if  ye 
have  known  of  his  goodness,  and  have  tasted  of  his  love,  and 
have  received  a  remission  of  your  sins,  which  causeth  such  ex- 
ceeding great  joy  in  y®ur  souls,  even  so  I  would  that  ye  should 
remember,  and  always  retain  in  remembrance  the  great- 
ness of  God,  and  your  own  nothingness,  and  his  goodness 
and  long  suffering  towards  you,  unworthy  creatures,  and  hum- 
ble yourselves  in  the  depths  of  humility,  calling  on  the  name 
of  the  Lord  daily,  and  standing  steadfast  in  the  faith  of  that 
which  is  to  come,  which  was  spoken  by  the  mouth  of  the 
angel;  and  behold,  I  say  unto  you,  that  if  ye  do  this,  ye  shall 
always  retain  a  remission  of  your  sins;  and  ye  shall  grow  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  him  that  created  you,  or  in  the 
knowledge  of  that  which  is  just  and  true, 

*'And  again  it  is  expedient  that  he  should  be  diligent, 
that  thereby  he  might  win  the  prize;  therefore,  all  things 
must  be  done  in  order.  And  I  would  that  ye  should  remem- 
ber, that  whosoever  among  you  borroweth  of  his  neighbor, 
should  return  the  thing  that  he  borroweth,  according  as  he 
doth  agree,  or  else  thou  shalt  commit  sin,  and  perhaps  thou 
shalt  cause  thy  neighbor  to  commit  sin  also.    And  finally,  I 


37 

cannot  tell  you  all  the  things  whereby  ye  may  commit  sin; 
for  there  are  divers  ways  and  means,  even  so  many  that  T  can- 
not number  them."— Sections  3  and  5. 

Can  you  explain,  friends,  how  God's  help  could  be 
required  in  saying  that?  It  is  good  practical  sense,  the 
most  of  it,  though  expressed  in  homely  phrase  and  in 
loosely  constructed  sentences  that  any  person  in  this  con- 
gregation could  at  least  equal  without  any  help  what- 
ever from  an  angel  of  God. 

But  now,  in  contrast  with  this,  please  turn  back  and 
read  with  me  on  page  94,  Second  Nephi,  10:  7,  a  quo- 
tation from  the  prophet  Isaiah  in  our  Bible: 

"Rejoice  not  thou,  whole  Palestina,  because  the  rod  of 
him  that  smote  thee  is  broken,  for  out  of  the  serpent's  root 
shall  come  forth  a  cocatrice,  and  his  fruit  shall  be  a  fiery 
flying  serpent/* 

You  have  to  stop  at  once;  cannot  take  it  all  in  at  a 
superficial  reading.  Careful  study  is  required.  What 
do  these  expressions  mean?  Who  or  what  is  meant  by 
the  "serpent's  root?"  And  how  from  such  parent- 
age can  there  come  forth  a  cocatrice?  And  by  what  law 
of  hereditary  or  natural  selection  shall  the  fruitage  of  the 
cocatrice  be  a  "fiery  flying  serpent?"  These  words  are 
evidently  chosen,  like  Daniel's  beasts,  to  represent  char- 
acter, human  character  and  human  action,  and  human 
destiny.  A  chance  for  study,  surely.  No  human  intel- 
lect is  sharp  enough  and  comprehensive  enough  to  take 
in  the  full  meaning  of  this  one  sentence  at  a  single  read- 
ing. 

And  the  same  is  true  of  the  balance  of  the  para- 
graph: 

"And  the  first  born  of  the  poor  shall  feed,  and  the  needy 
shall  lie  down  in  safety;  and  I  will  kill  the  root  with  famine, 
and  he  shall  slay  thy  remnant.    Howl,  O  gate;  cry,  O  city; 


38 

thou,  whole  Palestina,  art  dissolved:  for  there  shall  come 
from  the  north  a  smoke,  and  none  shall  be  alone  in  his  ap- 
pointed times  " 

Do  you  notice  any  loosely  constructed  sentences, 
any  useless  verbiage  in  the  above  paragraph? 

Perhaps  you  say  this  a  peculiar  passage,  hard  to 
understand.  Then  turn  back  to  an  easy  one,  page  71, 
Second  Nephi,  5:  1 1,  also  quoted  from  Isaiah  the  prophet: 

Awake,  awake,  put  on  thy  strength,  O  Zion;  put  on  thy 
beautiful  garments,  O  Jerusalem,  the  holy  city,  for  henceforth 
there  shall  no  more  come  into  thee,  the  uncircumcised  and 
the  unclean.  Shake  thyself  from  the  dust;  arise,  sit  down, 
O  Jerusalem;  loose  thyself  from  the  bonds  of  thy  neck,  O 
captive  daughter  of  Zion." 

Now,  while  it  is  apparently  easy  to  understand  this, 
for  a  rich  thought  lies  right  upon  the  surface,  yet,  when 
you  attempt  to  tell  what  it  means,  and  all  it  means,  how 
it  grows  upon  you!  How  immense  it  becomes!  It 
proves  a  rich  mine  of  thought,  the  deeper  down  you 
dig  the  richer  it  becomes  and  the  more  of  it. 

Take  a  still  simpler  and  plainer  passage,  the  First 
Psalm : 

"Blessed  is  the  man  that  walketh  not  in  the  council  of 
the  ungodly,  nor  standeth  in  the  way  of  sinners,  nor  sitteth 
in  the  seat  of  the  scornful. 

"But  his  delight  is  in  the  law  of  the  Lord,  and  in  his 
law  doth  he  meditate  day  and  night. 

"And  he  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  rivers  of 
water,  that  bringeth  forth  his  fruit  in  his  season;  his  leaf 
also  shall  not  wither,  and  whatsoever  he  doeth  shall  prosper. 

"The  ungodly  are  not  so,  but  are  like  the  chaff  which 
the  wind  drive th  away." 

Friends,  is  it  not  easy  enough  to  see,  that  though 
so  plain  and  simple,  yet  a  volume  of  meaning  is 
crowded  into  these  words?  Every  verse  is  a  text, 
from  which  a  valuable  sermon  could  easily  be  preached. 
No  awkward,  blundering  sentences;  no  superficial,  un- 


39 

hecessary  roundabout  phrases  that  require  an  apology 
for  their  existence.  Every  sentence  ''strikes  oil;"  every 
word  has  a  meaning  and  is  needed;  every  statement  has 
*'a  volume*'  in  it. 

If  you  turn  over  to  the  New  Testament,  what  could 
be  plainer  or  simpler,  or  more  beautifully  expressed  than 
Christ's  sermon  on  the  mount?  And  yet  you  have  to 
stop  at  every  sentence,  not  because  it  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand, but  because  you  discover  a  mine  of  gold  in  it  that 
is  not  exhausted  by  a  few  moments,  or  even  a  few  hours 
study  and  research.  And  the  same  thing  is  true  of  all 
his  *  sermons  and  addresses  and  parables.  What  can 
equal  in  sublimity  and  beauty  and  pathos,  and  yet  in 
real  simplicity  and  naturalness,  the  Fifteenth  Chapter  of 
Luke,  containing  the  parables  of  the  lost  sheep,  the  lost 
piece  of  money  and  the  prodigal  son?  An  inexhaustible 
storehouse  of  wealth,  that  all  the  study  of  the  ages  has 
neither  diminished  nor  rendered  stale. 

Read  over  Jesus'  incomparable  address  to  his  dis- 
ciples, on  the  eve  of  his  apprehension  and  crucifixion,  as 
recorded  in  the  Fourteenth,  Fifteenth  and  Sixteenth 
Chapters  of  John.  Every  sentence  has  the  stamp  of 
divinity  upon  it.  Spoken  by  lips  that  "spake  as  never 
man  spake."  Dissect  carefully  that  address,  and  find 
anywhere  in  it  the  word,  or  the  phrase,  or  the  sentence 
that  is  either  unnecessary,  useless  or  foolish;  find  one 
line  that  you  can  improve,  or  that  you  can  in  any  way 
equal;  find  a  single  sentence  that  does  not  fairly  bristle 
all  over  with  the  divine  heart  and  the  infinite  wisdom 
that  prompted  it: 

"Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled;  ye  believe  in  God,  be- 
lieve also  in  me. 

"In  my  father's  house  are  many  mansions.    I  go  to  pre- 
pare a  place  for  you. 


40 

"I  am  the  true  vine,  and  my  father  is  the  husbandman, 

**Every  branch  in  me  that  beareth  not  fruit  he  taketh 
away,  and  every  branch  that  beareth  fruit  he  purgeth  it,  that 
it  may  bring  forth  more  fruit. 

"Now  ye  are  clean  through  the  word  which  I  have  spoken 
unto  you. 

"Abide  in  me  and  I  in  you,"  etc.,  etc. 

Could  any  merely  human  lips  ever  have  given  ut- 
terance to  such  words  as  these? 

Let  me  read  you  one  more  selection  from  the  Book 
of  Mormon,  page  305,  Alma  16,  28: 

"Therefore  may  God  grant  unto  you,  my  brethren,  that 
ye  may  begin  to  call  upon  his  holy  name,  that  he  would  have 
mercy  upon  you;  yea,  cry  unto  him  for  mercy  for  he  is  mighty 
to  save;  yea,  humble  yourselves  and  continue  in  prayer  unto 
him;  cry  unto  him  when  ye  are  in  your  fields;  yea,  over  all 
your  flocks :  cry  unto  him  in  your  houses,  yea  over  all  your 
household,  both  morning,  mid -day  and  evening;  yea,  cry  un- 
to him  against  the  power  of  your  enemies;  yea,  cry  unto  him 
against  the  devil,  who  is  an  enemy  to  all  righteousness.  Cry 
unto  him  over  the  crops  of  your  fields,  that  ye  may  prosper  in 
them;  cry  over  the  flocks  of  your  fields  that  they  may  increase. 
But  this  is  not  all ;  ye  must  pour  out  your  souls  in  your  clos- 
ets and  your  secret  places,  and  in  your  wilderness ;  yea,  and 
when  you  do  not  cry  unto  the  Lord,  let  your  hearts  be  full, 
drawn  out  in  prayer  unto  him  continually  for  your  welfare, 
and  also  for  the  welfare  of  those  who  are  around  you." 

Friends,  I  have  purposely  read  you  one  of  the  very 
best  specimens  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  and  have  selected  it  because  I  wish  frankly  and 
freely  to  acknowledge  that  in  many  of  the  addresses  and 
the  exhortations  scattered  through  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
you  may  find  good,  sound,  practical  truths  expressed, 
truths  that  will  do  you  good  and  make  your  hfe 
better,  if  you  can  forgive  the  awkward,  bungling  man- 
ner in  which  they  are  usually  expressed.  And  yet,  if 
you  closely  scan  any  one  of  these  earnest  and  practical 
addresses,  you  will  find-that  nearly  all  that  is  valuable, 
or   practicable,    or  beautiful  in  them  is  borrowed  from 


41 

the  Bible.  If  you  should  strip  ^hem  of  all  Biblical 
phraseology  or  Biblical  thoughts,  the  refuse  that  is  left 
would  appear  exceedingly  human,  never  rising  higher 
than  the  capacity  of  an  ordinary  man;  a  very  ordinary 
man.  There  is  not  a  passage  in  the  book  thus  stripped 
of  borrowed  divinity  that  can  at  all  equal  in  beauty,  and 
power,  and  crispness,  and  elegance,  the  sentences  or  the 
thoughts  of  a  multitude  of  human  writers  of  the  present 
day.  How  almost  infinitely,  then,  do  they  fall  below  the 
character  and  the  style  of  the  sacred  writers.  Dear 
friends,  to  suppose  that  the  great  God  would  take  the 
trouble  to  send  an  angel  down  from  heaven  to  help  any 
man  of  ordinary  sense  compose  such  sentences  as  these 
would  be  a  repetition  of  the  old  fable,  a  mountain  labor- 
ing to  bring  forth  a  mouse !  And  if  the  angel  did  come 
to  help,  and  accomplish  no  more  than  this,  he  should 
forever  hide  his  face  in  shame. 

Perhaps  you  can  see  this  point  more  clearly,  if  I 
read  you  a  few  specimens  from  what  purports  to  be 
Jesus'  own  words.  The  book  tells  us,  you  remember, 
that  Jesus,  a  few  days  after  his  ascension,  as  recorded  in 
the  New  Testament,  appeared  here  in  this  country  and 
spent  some  forty  days  with  his  people,  performing 
miracles  and  preaching  to  them  the  gospel  of  the  king- 
dom. A  goodly  portion  of  his  addresses  are  made  up 
of  the  sermons  on  the  mount,  and  various  other  selections 
from  the  four  Gospels.  But  he  throws  in  a  great  many 
other  words.  And  friends,  permit  me  to  show  you  how 
vast  the  chasm  between  what  he  said  here  in  this 
country  and  what  he  said  in  the  Land  of  Judea,  as  to  its 
style,  its  general  character,  especially  in  the  one  point, 
its  terseness  and  comprehensiveness — the  ability  to 
**  strike  twelve*'  every  time  he  utters  a  word. 


42 

*And  while  I  read  these  specimens,  please  don*t 
forget  that  the  words  repeated  from  his  Judean  life  are  in 
every  instance  quoted  verbatim  from  our  present  English 
version,  the  King  James'  translation,  which  is  supposed 
to  be  quite  faulty;  whereas  the  words  he  uttered  here  in 
this  country  are  translated  by  the  help  of  an  angel,  and 
therefore,  of  course,  come  to  us  pure  from  the  ancient 
fountain. 

The  first  selection  is  a  single  sentence,  a  rather  long 
one,  and  somewhat  mixed  in  its  construction,  but  never- 
theless is  recorded  as  an  actual  speech  from  the  lips  of 
him  who  spake  as  never  man  spake,  page  477,  Nephi 
9,  11: 

"And  behold,  this  is  the  thing  which  I  will  give  unto  you 
for  a  sign,  for  verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  when  these  things 
which  I  declare  unto  you  and  which  I  shall  declare  unto  you 
hereafter  of  myself,  and  by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
which  shall  be  given  unto  you  of  the  Father,  shall  be  made 
known  unto  the  Gentiles,  that  they  may  know  concerning 
this  people,  who  are  a  remnant  of  the  house  of  Jacob,  and  con- 
cerning this  my  people,  who  shall  be  scattered  by  them;  verily, 
verily  I  say  unto  you,  when  these  things  shall  be  made  known 
unto  them  of  the  Father,  and  shall  come  forth  of  the  Father, 
from  them  unto  you,  for  it  is  wisdom  in  the  Father  that  they 
should  be  established  in  this  land,  and  be  set  up  as  a  free  peo- 
ple by  the  power  of  the  Father,  that  these  things  might  come 
forth  from  them  unto  a  remnant  of  your  seed,  that  the  coven- 
ant of  the  Father  may  be  fulfilled  which  he  has  covenanted 
with  his  people,  O  house  of  Israel;  therefore,  when  these 
works,and  the  works  which  shall  be  wrought  among  you  here- 
after, shall  come  forth  from  the  Gentiles  unto  your  seed, 
which  shall  dwindle  in  unbelief  because  of  iniquity ;  for  thus 
it  behoveth  the  Father  that  it  should  come  forth  from  the  Gen- 
tiles, that  he  may  show  forth  his  power  unto  the  Gentiles,  for 
this  cause,  that  the  Gentiles,  if  they  will  not  harden  their 
hearts,  that  they  may  repent  and  come  unto  me,  and  be  bap- 
tized in  my  name,  and  know  of  the  true  points  of  my  doc- 
trine, that  they  may  be  numbered  among  my  people,  O  house 
of  Israel;  and  when  these  things  come  to  pass,  that  thy  seed 
shall  begin  to  know  these  things,  it  shall  be  a  sign  unto  them, 
that  they  may  know  that  the  work  of  the  Father  hath  already 


43 

commenced,  unto  the  fulfilling  of  the  covenant  which  he 
hath  made  unto  the  people  who  are  of  the  house  of  Israel." 

This  sentence  contains  over  340  words.  The  words 
**that"  and  ''which"  are  repeated  twenty  times;  the 
words  ''I,"  ''my"  and  "me,"  eleven  times;  the  word 
Father,  eight  times;  Gentiles,  five  times;  the  expres- 
sion, "shall  come  forth,"  four  times.  All  this  in  one 
sentence.*    A  very  remarkable  sentence  surely. 

I  find  upon  examination  that  in  Christ's  sermon  on 
the  mount,  beginning  at  the  first  sentence,  340  words 
include  eighteen  complete  sentences,  an  average  of  nine- 
teen  words  to  the  sentence.  All  Jesus'  sentences  found 
in  the  New  Testament  are  short  and  incisive.  The 
longest  one  I  have  been  able  to  find  is  this  one: 

"Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor,  and  hate  thine  enemy:  but  I  say  unto  you,  love 
your  enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully  use  you 
and  persecute  you;  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven:  for  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on 
the  evil  and  on  the  good;  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and 
on  the  unjust." 

A  very  comprehensive,  clear-cut  sentence.  No 
bungling,  mixed  up  affair.  How  differently  it  sounds 
from  the  above  bewildering  mass  of  340  words.  Friends, 
can  you  believe  Jesus  was  really  the  author  of  that  long 
sentence?  Does  it  sound  like  him?  Can  you  find  any- 
thing in  the  entire  four  Gospels  that  looks  like  it,  that 
bears  any  resemblance  whatever  to  it?  Is  it,  as  a  sen- 
tence, the  " forty-secondth  cousin"  ol  anything  found 
in  the  four  Gospels? 

The  second  selection  is  from  page  482,  Nephi  11,  i: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  when  Jesus  had  expounded 
all  the  scriptures  in  one  which  they  had  written,  he  com- 
manded them  that  they  should  teach  the  things  which  he  had 
expounded  unto  them.    And  it  came  to  pass  that  he  com- 


44 

manded  them  that  they  should  write  the  words  which  the 
father  had  given  uDto  Maiachi,  which  he  should  tell  unto 
them.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  after  they  were  written,  he 
expounded  them.  And  these  are  the  words  which  he  did  tell 
unto  them,  saying,  thus  said  the  Father  unto  Maiachi," 

Now,  mark  you,  what  a  wondrous  transition  from 
the  above  blundering,  awkward  narrative,  to  the  majes- 
tic, subHme,  and  yet  smooth  and  beautiful  sentences  that 
follow,  quoted  from  the  Bible: 

"Behold  I  will  send  my  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare 
the  way  before  me,  and  the  Lord  whom  ye  seek  shall  sudden- 
ly come  to  his  temple,  even  the  messenger  of  the  covenant, 
whom  ye  delight  in;  behold,  he  shall  come,  s^ith  the  Lord  of 
Hosts.  But  who  may  abide  the  day  of  his  coming?  and  who 
shall  stand  when  he  appeareth?  for  he  is  like  a  refiner's  fire 
and  like  f  aller's  soap.  And  he  shall  sit  as  a  refiner  and  puri- 
fier of  silver:  and  he  shall  purify  the  sons  of  Levi,  and  purge 
them  as  gold  and  silver,  that  they  may  offer  unto  the  Lord 
an  offering  in  righteousness." 

Once  more,  please  turn  to  page  485,  Nephi  12,  3: 

**And  Jesus  again  showed  himself  unto  them,  for  they 
,  were  praying  unto  the  Father,  in  his  name;  and  Jesus  came 
and  stood  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  saith  unto  them,  what 
will  ye  that  I  shall  give  unto  you  ?  And  they  said  unto  him. 
Lord,  we  will  that  thou  wouldst  tell  us  the  name  whereby 
we  shall  call  this  church;  for  there  are  disputations  among 
the  people  concerning  this  matter.  And  the  Lord  said  unto 
them,  verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  why  is  it  the  people 
should  murmur  and  dispute  because  of  this  thing?  have  they 
not  read  the  scriptures,  which  say  ye  must  take  upon  you  the 
name  of  Christ,  which  is  my  name  ?*  for  by  this  name  shall 

*lt  is  evident  the  Jesus  who  said  this  was  a  very  ig^norant  man,  and  not  the 
Jesus  of  the  Gospels.  "And  she  shall  bring-  forth  a  son  and  they  shall  call  his 
name  Jesus :  for  he  shall  save  his  people  from  their  sins.  And  he  called  his 
name  Jesus." — Mathew  i:  21,  25.  "And  when  eight  days  were  accomplished 
for  the  circumcising  o  f  the  child,  his  name  whs  called  Jesus,  which 
was  so  named  of  the  ang-el  before  he  was  conceived  in  the  womb." — 
Luke  2:21.  The  word  ''Christ"  was  not  his  name  at  all.  It  desig-nated  his 
office,  "the  Annointed  One,"  "Jesus  the  Christ;"  "Jesus  the  Annointed  One," 
was  the  proper  designation.  Throughout  the  four  Gospels, he  is  uniformly  called 
Jesus.  Wherever  the  word  Christ  occurs  it  was  preceded  by  the  emphatic  ar- 
ticle the  in  the  Greek  languag-e,  as  in  Matt.  16,  16.  By  frequent  use,  however, 
the  article  was  after  a  while  omitted,  so  that  in  the  Epistles  we  find  the  two 
words  associated  tog-ether,  Jesus  Christ.  The  article,  however,  is  always  un- 
derstood. So  that  his  name  was  not  "Christ,"  nor  yet  "Jesus  Christ."  It  was 
simply  Jesus.  Hence,  the  author  of  the  above  unintentional  fib  could  neither 
have  been  the  Lord  Jesus  himself,  nor  any  one  inspired  by  his  Spirit. 


45 

ye  be  called  at  the  last  day;  and  whoso  taketh  upon  him  my 
name,  and  endureth  to  the  end,  the  same  shall  be  saved 
at  the  last  day; therefore  whatsoever  ye  shall  do,  ye  shall  do 
it  in  my  name;  therefore  ye  shall  call  the  church  in  my  name; 
and  ye  shall  call  upon  the  Father  in  my  name,  that  he  will 
bless  the  church  for  my  sake:  and  how  be  it  my  church,  save 
it  be  called  in  my  name?  for  if  a  church  be  called  in  Moses' 
name,  then  it  be  Moses'  church:  or  if  it  be  called  in  the  name 
of  a  man,  then  it  be  the  church  of  a  man;  but  if  it  be  called  in 
my  name,  then  it  is  my  church,  if  it  so  be  that  they  are  built 
upon  my  Gospel.  Verily  I  say  unto  you  that  ye  are  built  up- 
on my  Gospel;  therefore  ye  shall  call  whatsoever  things  ye  do 
in  my  name;  therefore  if  ye  call  upon  the  Father,  for  the 
church,  if  it  be  in  my  name,  the  Father  will  hear  you;  and  if 
it  so  be  that  the  church  is  built  upon  my  gospel,  then  will 
the  Father  show  forth  his  own  works  in  it;  but  if  it  be  not 
built  upon  my  gospel,  and  is  built  upon  the  works  of  men,  or 
upon  the  works  of  the  devil,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  they  have 
joy  in  their  works  for  a  season,  and  by  and  by  the  end  cometh 
and  they  are  hewn  down  and  cast  into  the  fire,  from  whence 
there  is  no  return;  for  their  works  do  follow  them,  for  it  is 
because  of  their  works  that  they  are  hewn  down;  therefore 
remember  the  things  that  I  have  told  you." 

Is  there  one  before  me  to-night  who  can  believe 
that  such  blundering  sentences  and  worse  than  blunder- 
ing statements,  such  puerile,  shallow  stuff,  came  from  the 
lips  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  man  who  spake  as  never 
man  spake? 

Bear  with  me  once  more,  while  I  present  another 
contrast,  and  I  will  not  even  stop  to  point  out  to  you 
the  place  in  the  following  quotation  where  the  transition 
occurs  between  Jesus'  words,  as  quoted  from  Isaiah  the 
prophet,  and  Jesus'  words  as  they  profess  to  have  come 
from  his  own  hps,  while  here  in  this  country.  I  think 
you  will  have  no  difficulty  in  deciding  where  the  change 
occurs  from  the  grand,  lofty,  sublime  thought  of  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  to  the  coarse,  awkward,  bungling, 
mixed  up  sentences  that  are  charged  to  our  divine  Lord. 

I  read  from  pages  480-1,  Nephi  10,  2: 

"O  thou  afflicted,  tossed  with  tempest,  and  net  comfort- 
ed !  behold,  I  will  lay  thy  stones  with  fair  colors,  and  lay  thy 


46 

foundation  with  sapphires.  And  I  will  make  thy  windows 
of  agates,  and  thy  gates  of  carbuncles,  and  all  thy  borders  of 
pleasant  stones.  And  all  thy  children  shall  be  taught  of  the 
Lord;  and  great  shall  be  the  peace  of  thy  children.  In 
righteousness  shalt  thou  be  established;  thou  shalt  be  far 
from  oppression,  for  thou  shalt  not  fear,  and  from  terror,  for 
it  shall  not  come  near  thee.  Behold,  they  shall  surely  gather 
together  against  thee,  not  by  me;  whosoever  shall  gather  to- 
gether against  thee  shall  fall  for  thy  sake.  Behold,  I  have 
created  the  smith  that  bloweth  the  coals  in  the  fire,  and  that 
bringeth  forth  an  instrument  for  his  work;  and  I  have  created 
the  waster  to  destroy.  No  weapon  that  is  formed  against  thee 
shall  prosper;  and  every  tongue  that  shall  rise  against  thee 
in  judgment  thou  shalt  condemn.  This  is  the  heritage  of 
the  servants  of  the  Liord,  and  their  righteousness  is  of  me, 
saith  the  Lord.  And  now  behold  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  had 
ought  to  search  these  things  diligently ;  for  great  are  the  words 
of  Isaiah.  For  surely  he  spake  as  touching  all  things  con- 
cerning my  people  which  are  of  the  house  of  Israel;  therefore  it 
must  needs  be  that  he  must  speak  also  unto  the  Gentiles.  And 
all  things  that  he  spake  hath  been  and  shall  be,  even  accord- 
ing to  the  words  which  he  spake.  Therefore  give  heed  to 
my  words,  write  the  things  which  I  have  told  you;  and  ac 
cording  to  the  time  and  the  will  of  the  Father,  they  shall  go 
forth  unto  the  Gentiles," 

And  now,  at  this  stage  in  the  discussion,  permit  me 
to  read  you  a  passage  where  the  poor  man  Nephi  is 
made  to  give  himself  entirely  away,  so  far  as  being  in- 
spired by  the  Holy  Spirit  or  helped  by  an  angel  of  God 
to  write  the  book  of  Nephi.  He  forgets  a  very  import- 
ant matter  of  record;  leaves  out  of  his  book  an  im- 
portant fact  that  should  have  gone  in  it. — Page  481, 
Nephi  10,  3: 

*' And  now  it  came  to  pass  that  when  Jesus  had  said  these 
words,  he  said  unto  them  again,  after  he  had  expounded  all 
the  scriptures  unto  them  which  they  had  received,  he  said 
unto  them,  behold,  other  scriptures  I  would  that  ye  should 
write,  that  ye  have  not.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  he  said 
unto  Nephi,  bring  forth  the  record  which  ye  have  kept.  And 
when  Nephi  had  brought  forth  the  records,  and  laid  them 
before  him,  he  cast  his  eyes  upon  them  and  said,  verily  I  say 
unto  you,  I  commanded  my  servant  Samuel,  the  Lamanite, 
that  he  should  testify  unto  this  people,  that  at  the  day  the 
Father  should  glorify  his  name  in  me,  that  there  were  many 


47 

saints  who  should  arise  from  the  dead,  and  should  appear 
unto  many,  and  should  minister  unto  them.  And  he  said 
unto  them,  were  it  not  so  ?  And  his  disciples  answered  him 
and  said,  yea,  Lord,  Samuel  did  prophesy  according  to  thy 
words,  and  they  were  all  fulfilled.  A nd  Jesus  said  unto  them, 
how  be  it  that  ye  have  not  written  this  thing,  that  many 
saints  did  arise  and  appear  unto  many,  and  did  minister  unto 
them?  And  it  came  to  pass  that  Nephi  remembered  that 
this  thing  had  not  been  written  And  it  came  to  pass  that 
Jesus  commanded  that  it  should  be  written;  therefore  it  was 
written  as  he  commanded." 

You  readily  see  how  it  is.  Jesus,  in  glancing  over 
Nephi's  record,  discovers  an  important  omission,  and 
chides  Nephi  for  his  neglect.  Nephi  acknowledges  the 
omission  ;  and  now,  at  the  command  of  Jesus,  inserts 
the  omitted  matter  in  at  this  place,  entirely  out  of  its 
proper  connection.  Now,  was  Nephi  under  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit  or  assisted  by  an  angel  from 
heaven  when  he  made  such  a  blunder  as  this  in  keeping 
his  record  ?  Is  a  patched  up  record  inspired  of  God  ? 
If  an  angel  comes  all  the  way  from  heaven  to  help,  it 
should  have  been  an  intelligent  angel,  blessed  with  a 
good  memory,  or  he  could  have  been  of  no  particular 
advantage  to  Nephi. 


But  there  are  other  proofs  that  this  book  must  be  a 
human  production,  that  God  could  have  had  no  hand 
whatever  in  its  preparation,  aside  from  the  style  in  which 
it  is  written,  and  the  blunder  in  the  record  just  consid- 
ered. 

I  ask  your  indulgence  a  few  moments  more,  while 
I  mention  one  other  point.  There  are  throughout  the 
Book  of  Mormon  numberless  exhibitions  of  human 
weakness,  altogether  inconsistent  with  the  supposition 
that  it  came  from  God. 


48 

For  instance,  each  author  is  in  the  main  the  hero 

of  his  own  story.     Permit  me  to  read  you  the  opening 

sentence  in  the  book,  and  simply  call  your  attention  to 

the  fact  that  the  words  ''V  and   ''my"  occur  sixteen 

times  in  this  opening  statement: 

"I,  Nephi,  having  been  born  of  goodly  parents,  therefore 
I  was  taught  somewhat  in  all  the  learning  of  my  father;  and 
having  seen  many  afflictions  in  the  course  of  my  days,  never- 
theless, having  been  highly  favored  of  the  Lord  in  all  my 
days;  yea,  having  had  a  great  knowledge  of  the  goodness  and 
mysteries  of  God,  therefore,  I  make  a  record  of  my  proceed- 
ings in  my  days;  yea,  I  make  a  record  in  the  language  of  my 
father,  which  consists  of  the  learning  of  the  Jews  and  the 
language  of  the  Egyptians.  And  I  know  that  the  record 
which  I  make  is  true;  and  I  make  it  with  mine  own  hand; 
and  I  make  it  according  to  my  knowledge." 

For  a  specimen   of  real  simon-pure  conceit,   read 

on  next  page,  section  7: 

*'And  now  I,  Nephi,  do  not  make  a  full  account  of  the 
things  which  my  father  hath  written,  for  he  hath  written 
many  things  which  he  saw  in  visions  and  in  dreams;  and  he 
also  hath  written  many  things  which  he  prophesied  and 
spake  unto  his  children  of  which  I  shall  not  make  a  full  ac- 
count, but  I  shall  make  an  account  of  my  proceedings  in  my 
days.  Behold,  I  make  an  abridgment  of  the  record  of  my 
father,  upon  plates  which  I  have  made  with  my  own  hands; 
wherefore,  after  I  have  abridged  the  record  of  my  father,  then 
will  I  make  an  account  of  mine  own  life.'' 

The  second  author,   Jacob,   begins  his  book  thus, 

p.  114: 

*  *  *  "And  he  (Nephi)  gave  me,  Jacob,  a  command- 
ment that  I  should  write  upon  these  plates  a  few  things  which 
I  considered  to  be  most  precious:  that  I  should  not  touch, 
save  it  were  lightly,  concerning  the  history  of  this  people 
which  are  called  the  people  of  Nephi.  For  he  said  that  the 
history  of  his  people  should  be  engraven  upon  his  other 
plates  and  that  I  should  preserve  these  plates  and  hand  them 
down  unto  my  seed,  from  generation  to  generation.  And  if 
there  were  preaching  which  was  sacred,  or  revelation  which 
was  great,  or  prophesying,  that  I  should  engraven  the  heads 
of  them  upon  these  plates,  and  touch  upon  them  as  much  as 
it  were  possible.  *  ♦  *  And  we  also  had  many  revelations, 
and  the  spirit  of  much  prophesy." 


49 

The  third  author,  Enos,  begins  his  book  by  com- 
plimenting his  lather,  Jacob, — a  back -handed  way  of 
boasting  over  his  own  inherited  good  quaHties,  and  the 
excellent  training  he  had  received — and  then  occupies  a 
considerable  space  with  an  account  of  his  own  conversion, 
written  in  first-class  modern  revival  style.  While  the 
fourth  author,  Jarom,  modestly  hints  that  the  things  he 
proposes  to  write  are  as  nothing,  compared  with  the 
things  he  had  publicly  taught  and  that  had  been  reveal- 
ed to  him.  And,  in  fact,  this  appears  to  be  character- 
istic of  nearly  every  author  in  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
the  modest  boast,  though,  every  little  while  repeated  : 

"I  ODly  record  a  very  few  of  the  remarkable  revelations 
I  have  received,  or  of  the  remarkable  deeds  that  have  been 
accomplished  through  my  leadership  and  inspiration." 

Strikingly  in  contrast,  this,  with  the  authors  of  the  var- 
ious books  of  the  Bible.  The  first  book.  Genesis,  begins 
thus: 

"In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth." 

And  we  look  at  the  close  of  the  book,  examine  every 
page  of  it,  in  vain,  to  find  even  a  hint  as  to  who  was  its 
author.  So  with  Exodus  and  Leviticus  and  Numbers  ;  in 
fact,  we  have  to  read  throughover  one  half  the  entire  Old 
Testament,  embracing  fifteen  books,  before  we  have  so 
much  as  a  hint  of  the  authorship.  The  book  of  Ne- 
hemiah  opens  with  this  brief  and  modest  title: 
"The  words  of  Nehemiah  the  son  of  Hachaliah." 

Then,  we  p?.ss  the  books  of  Esther,  Job  and  the  Psalms 
without  the  names  of  the  authors.  The  Book  of  Pro- 
verbs has  this  preface : 

**The  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  the  son  of  David,  King  of 
Israel." 


50 

The  various  prophets  are  under  a  necessity,  from  the 
very  character  of  their  work,  of  revealing  their  names. 
But,  it  is  done  in  the  same,  modest,  simple  way: 

"The  vision  ef  Isaiah,  the  son  of  Amos,  which  he  saw 
concerning  Judah  and  Jerusalem." 

"The  words  of  Jeremiah,  the  son  of  Hilkiah,  of  the  priests 
that  were  in  Anathoth." 

"The  words  of  the  Lord  that  came  unto  Hosea.'' 

"The  word  of  the  Lord  that  came  to  Joel,  the  son  of 
Pethuel." 

"The  words  of  Amos,  who  was  amoog  the  herdmen  of 
Tekoa." 

And  so  with  every  one  of  the  prophets.  The  open- 
ing sentence  tells  who  is  its  author,  but  always  in  the 
third  person,  with  the  single  exception  of  Ezekiel,  who 
begins  his  prophesy  in  the  first  person. 

If  we  examine  the  New  Testament, we  find  Matthew 
begins  thus : 

"The  book  of  the  generations  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  son  of 
David,  the  son  of  Abraham." 

Mark,  thus: 

"The  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  son  of 
God.'* 

John,  thus : 

"In  the  beginning  was  the  word,  and  the  word  was  with 
God,  and  the  word  was  God." 

Luke  is  the  only  one  of  the  four  Evangelists  who 
furnishes  us  anything  like  2,  personal  mXxoA\XQX\ori.  And 
yet  he  entirely  witholds  his  own  name.  The  same  with 
the  Book  of  Acts.  In  fact  we  only  learn  from  the  early 
history  of  the  church,  entirely  outside  of  the  New 
Testament  writers,  who  wrote  either  one  of  these  five 
books. 

With  the  Epistles  it  is,  of  course,  different.  They 
were  private  and  personal  affairs,  addressed  to  individ- 


51 

uals,  as  Timothy,  Titus,  &c.,  or  they  were  addressed  to 
particular  churches  and  required  the  signature  of  the 
writer  to  give  them  value  and  authority  at  the  time  they 
were  written.  And  yet  one  of  the  most  important  of  the 
Epistles,  the  Book  of  Hebrews,  remains  incognito  to  this 
day,  the  best  scholarship  of  the  world  being  divided  as 
to  its  real  author.  And  not  one  of  the  authors  becomes 
the  hero  of  his  own  story,  until  we  come  to  the 
prophets,  who,  in  the  most  delicate  way,  with  a  modesty 
that  has  not  the  remotest  suspicion  of  egotism,  speak  of 
themselves  only  when  the  necessities  of  the  narrative 
requires  such  mention,  as  in  the  case  of  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel  and  Daniel.  Only  one  solitary  author  in  the 
entire  Bible  makes  a  boast,  or  even  mentions  in  any 
way  whatever,  the  abundance  of  his  revelations.  And 
that  is  the  Apostle  Paul.  And  he  was  obliged  to  do  it 
in  vindication  of  the  gospel  he  had  preached,  but 
apologizes  in  the  most  earnest  and  emphatic  way  for  the 
necessity  of  thus  making  a  fool  of  himself ,  as  he  calls  it. 
'*I  am  become  a  fool  in  glorying,"  he  says  to  the  Cor- 
inthians ;  '  ^ ye  have  compelled  me. ' ' 

And  do  you  know,  friends,  this  is  the  w^ay  God  has 
always  wrought  in  nature?  This  world  of  ours  is  a 
wonderful  world,  crowded  full  of  God's  handiwork. 
Every  grain  of  sand  in  it,  every  drop  of  water,  every 
blade  of  grass,  every  shrub  and  flower,  as  well  as  every 
living  thing  that  swims  in  its  waters,  or  creeps  upon  its 
surface,  or  flies  in  its  air,  is  full  of  proof — **the  hand  that 
made  me  is  divine.'' 

But  now,  friends,  would  not  it  seem  a  little  strange, 
and  somewhat  out  of  keeping  wdth  the  dignity  and  glory 
of  the  divine  character,  if  God  should  attach  a  label  to 
each  separate  article  in  nature,  saying,    '*I  made  this." 


52 

If  over  each  one  of  these  beautiful  shade  trees  were 
written,  "This  is  my  work/'  or  suspended  over  every 
garden  spot,  or  bed  of  flowers,  or  grassy  meadow,  in 
golden  letters,  *'I,  the  Lord,  did  this;"  or,  if  he  should 
come  down  from  heaven  every  evening  in  a  cloud,  and 
proclaim  in  thunder  tones,  that  every  one  might  hear, 
*^A11  the  blessings  you  have  enjoyed  to-day  came  from 
my  hand."  Surely  this  is  not  needful,  friends,  so  long 
as  the  proofs  of  his  handiwork  lie  all  about  us  in  such 
rich  abundance. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  for  him  to  attach  to  the  book  of 
Genesis,  or  the  book  of  Matthew,  or  John,  or  Hebrews, 
any  affidavit  whatever  as  to  their  inspired  origin.  Every 
page  proclaims,  **The  brain  that  dictated  this  was  an 
inspired  brain."  The  necessity  therefor  that  requires 
the  various  authors  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  to  assert  so 
frequently  their  divine  inspiration,  and  parade  upon 
almost  every  second  or  third  page  the  abundance  of 
their  revelations,  is  a  confession  of  weakness,  to  say  the 
least,  and  suggests  the  suspicion  that  the  author  fears 
you  may  not  find  out  the  divine  origin  of  his  plates 
unless  he  keeps  reiterating  the  fact — the  sad  necessity  of 
the  young  painter,  you  remember,  whose  first  attempt 
at  painting  proved  so  far  a  failure  that  he  was  obliged 
to  write  underneath  his  picture,  ' '  This  is  a  horse/' ' 

The  next  lecture  will  show  that  the  Book  of  Mormon 
is  wholly  a  modern  composition,  and  therefore  not  at  all 
what  it  professes  to  be. 


LECTURE   III. 


"For  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are 
your  ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord. 

"For  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my 
ways  higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your 
thoughts." — Isaiah  55,  8-9. 

The  other  day,  a  neighbor  of  mine  was  examininj' 
somewhat  minutely  a  few  of  the  wormSy  or  caterpillar-^ 
with  which  out  city  is  infested.  Calling  my  attention  to 
them,  I  discovered  tor  the  first  time,  that  they  were  not 
the  muddy,  dirty-looking,  ugly  creatures  I  had  supposed. 
A  close  inspection  revealed  the  fact  that  they  were  really 
beautiful;  that  an  exquisite  taste  had  been  displayed  in  the 
various  colors  employed,  their  skillful  blending,  and  th( 
delicateness  and  perfection  of  their  tints,  and  especialh 
in  the  strange  and  endless  variety  exhibited.  Really, 
you  could  find  no  two  exactly  alike. 

And  then  there  suddenly  flashed  upon  me  a  fact  1 
was  taught  when  a  school-boy,  that  there  are  no  two 
objects  in  nature  exactly  alike ;  infinite  variety  and  not 
sameness  is  the  rule.  And  I  recall  hours  spent  with 
brothers  and  sisters  in  the  old  home  garden,  examinini: 
a  large  bed  of  ' 'ribbon  grass''  to  test  the  theory.  There 
were  only  a  few  colored  lines  on  each  blade  of  grass,  bu' 
they  were  always  arranged  differently,  so  that  we  never 
found  two  exactly  alike.  Extending  our  observ^ation , 
we  patiently  examined  hundreds  and  thousands  of  clover 


54 

leaves,  the  leaves  upon  the  apple  trees,  and  the  leaves 
upon  the  small  oak  saplings,  growing  in  a  neighboring 
pasture,  and  always  with  the  same  result;  no  two  alike. 
We  all  know  that  there  are  no  two  human  faces  just 
alike,  no  two  human  characters  alike.  All  possess  the 
$ame  contour  of  face,  the  same  faculties,  passions  and 
attributes;  but  the  varieties  of  development  are  appar- 
ently infinite,  so  that,  probably,  no  two  persons  have 
ever  lived,  or  ever  will  live,  who  look  and  act  and  are 
exactly  alike.  And  it  is  said  that  the  same  law  of  infi- 
nite variety  extends  even  to  the  minutest  animacule  that 
appears  in  a  drop  of  water,  and  lives  but  a  brief  day ;  to 
every  grain  of  sand  upon  the  sea  shore;  in  fact,  as  some 
believe,  to  every  ultimate,  minute  particle  of  matter  of 
which  our  earth  is  composed. 

And,  friends,  this  endless  variety,  exhibited  every- 
where in  nature,  affording  us  such  clear  proof  of  the 
limitless,  the  unbounded  resources  of  the  great  Creator, 
is  found  just  as  clearly  marked  in  the  Bible.  There  are 
certain  great  lines  of  truth  distinctly  and  clearly  re- 
vealed to  us;  but  the  unfolding  of  these  great  lines  of 
truth  is  almost  infinitely  varied.  So  that  there  are,  prop- 
erlyspeaking,  no  repetitions  in  the  Bible.  There  are  repe- 
titions of  questions  and  commands  for  the  sake  of 
added  emphasis;  sometimes  of  words  and  phrases  re- 
quired by  the  bold  and  vigorous  and  animated  style  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures;  yet,  properly  speaking,  the  Bible 
does  not  repeat  itself  The  New  Testament  does  not 
repeat  the  Old  Testament;  none  of  the  later  books  re- 
peat from  the  earlier  books.  There  is  one  single  instance 
in  the  Old  Testament  where  one  short  chapter  is  repeat- 
ed word  for  word  in  two  different  books.  Why,  we  do 
not  know.     Probably,  two  different  authors,  in  making 


55 

a  record  or  compiling  a  history  of  the  same  person- 
ages, had  access  to  the  same  original  document  and 
quoted  them  alike.  In  the  New  Testament,  three  diff- 
erent men,  Matthew,  Mark  and  Luke,  furnish  a  history 
of  the  life  of  Christ.  They  write  entirely  independent 
of  each  other,  in  separate  portions  of  the  world,  for  en- 
tirely different  classes  of  people,  and  evidently  without 
any  knowledge  of  each  others  work;  and,  as  might  be 
expected,  when  recording  the  same  event,  mention  the 
very  same  particulars,  the  prominent  points  in  the  event 
they  narrate.  But,  they  scarcely  ever  do  it  in  the  same 
words.  Each  presents  the  fact  from  his  own  standpoint; 
and,  hence,  exhibits  a  different  phase  from  the  other, 
keeping  up  a  constant  freshness  and  variety.  Even  in 
the  large  number  of  quotations  found  in  the  New  Test- 
ament from  the  Old,  the  language  is  so  varied  as  to  pre- 
sent a  new  side  to  the  old  truth,  giving  you  a  view  of  it 
that  you  had  not  been  able  to  discover  from  the  Old 
Testament  reading.  And,  the  quotations  from  the  Old 
Testament  found  in  the  New  are  exceedingly  brief;  the 
longest  one  is  in  Rom.  3,  quoted  from  the  Psalms,  to 
prove  that  * 'there  is  none  righteous."  And  this  quota- 
tion embraces  only  three  brief  sentences,  making  in  all 
eight  or  ten  lines  on  a  printed  page  like  this. 

If  it  had  been  different,  ifone  prophet  had  quoted  large 
portions  of  a  previous  prophet's  words,  if  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers  had  borrowed  whole  chapters  from  the  Old 
Testament  prophets  and  made  up  their  addresses  chiefly 
in  this  way,  we  would  at  once  have  felt,  * 'Something  is 
out  of  joint:  the  God  of  nature  and  the  God  of  the  Bible 
seem  to  proceed  differently.  And,  has  God  really  ex- 
hausted his  resources  in  the  Old  Testament  revelations, 
that  he  must  needs  repeat  himself  thus?     Has  he  nothing 


56 

new  to  tell  us?  not  even  a  new  way  of  presenting  the 
old  thoughts?" 

Well,  now,  friends,  the  Book  of  Mormon  has  this 
very  serious  objection  to  its  divinity:  It  is  not  original 
enough  to  have  come  from  God.  It  is  made  up  largely 
of  borrowed  material.  Outside  of  the  mere  frame  work 
of  the  book,  its  thread  of  history,  the  filling  in  is  largely 
borrowed.  I  mean  the  religious  part  of  the  book;  its 
sermons,  exhortations  and  addresses  are  either  repeti- 
tions of  the  exact  language  of  the  Bible,  or  they  are 
constructed  as  gospel  sermons  of  the  present  day  are 
constructed,  filled  in  with  a  large  amount  of  Bible 
phraseology,  Bible  allusions,  illustrations,  etc. 

For  instance,  I  find  that  the  Lord  Jesus,  when  he 
first  appeared  to  the  Nephites,  as  recorded  in  the  fifth 
chapter  of  III  Nephi,  after  saying  a  few  words  (more 
than  one  half  of  which  are  selections*  from  his  various 
words  as  recorded  in  the  four  Gospels),  began  to  repeat 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  as  recorded  by  Matthew  in 
the  5th,  6th  and  7th  chapters,  and  repeated  the  entire 
sermon  word  for  word.  Then  followed  this,  with  about 
as  much  more  material  filled  in  constantly  with  short 
phrases  or  whole  sentences  taken  from  other  portions  of 
the  Bible.  When  he  came  back  the  second  time  and 
addressed  them  at  some  length,  he  quotes  verbatim 
nearly  two  whole  chapters  from  the  book  of  Isaiah,  and 
closes  up  his  speech  with  a  repetition  of  the  two  last 
chapters  of  the  Book  of  Malachi. 

*The  following-  is  a  specimen.  The  borrowed  v^orA^  and  phrases  are  in 
italics,  (See  III  Nephi,  5,  9.) :  "And  again  I  say  unto  you,  ye  must  repent,  and 
he  baptized  in  my  name,  and  become  as  a  little  child,  ox  ye  can  in  nowise  inherit 
the  kinordom  of  God.  Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  thai  this  is  my  doctrine, 
and  whoso  buildeth  upon  thus,  buildeth  upon  my  rock,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall 
not  prevail  against  them.  And  whoso  shall  declare  more  or  less  than  this,  and 
cstxhXxsh.  it  ior  my  diOctT\ne,  the  same  Cometh  of  evil,  2indi  is  not  built  upon  my 
rock,  but  he  buildeth  upon  a  sandy  foundation,  and  the  gates  of  hell  standeth 
open  to  receive  such,  when  the j^oods  come  and  the  winds  beat  upon  them. 


57 

I  find  in  the  second  book  of  Nephi,  beginning  with 
the  eighth  chapter,  the  author  quotes  from  Isaiah,  the 
prophet,  and  fills  up  sixteen  full  pages,  transcribing  the 
greater  part  of  the  first  fourteen  chapters  of  Isaiah's 
prophecy.  Nearly  the  whole  of  Isaiah,  and  occasional 
selections  from  the  other  prophets,  are  thus  incorporated 
into  the  Book  of  Mormon,  with  the  major  portion  of 
Christ's  words  as  found  in  the  four  evangelists,  and  a 
generous  sprinkling  from  all  the  epistles  and  the  Book  of 
Revelation. 

It  is  no  excuse  for  this  lack  of  originality  and  con- 
stant repetition  of  the  Bible,  that,  while  it  was  not  new 
to  nsjtwas  new  to  the  people  in  this  country  who  heard  it. 
There  could  have  been  no  possible  objection  to  having 
those  old  sermons  and  addresses  filled  up  with  Bible  quo- 
tations for  the  benefit  of  those  who  listened  to  them;  but, 
such  quotations  should  have  been  left  out  of  a  record  that 
was  kept  for  us  who  already  possess  the  Bible.  And,  that 
ancient  record,  as  is  frequently  asserted,  was  made  for 
us  exclusively,  and  not  for  the  people  then  living.  They 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  plates  from  which 
the  Book  of  Mormon  was  translated;  in  fact,  never  saw 
them,^    They  were  prepared  and  preserved  for  our  bene- 

It  is  understood  that  the  entire  Book  of  Mormon,  except  the  last  fifty 
Pag-es,  was  written  by  one  Mormon,  who  lived  just  at  the  close  of  the  Nephite 
history;  was  commander-in-chief  of  the  Nephite  forces  in  that  terrible  battle 
that  swept  the  Nephite  nation  out  of  existence  in  the  year  3S4  after  Christ. 
The  plntes  of  the  elder  Nephi,  his  brother  Jacob,  and  all  their  successors  in 
office  for  nearly  a  thousand  years,  came  into  th**  hands  ot  Mormon, |and  he  madg 
an  abridgement  in  his  own  language^  and  then  turned  this  abridi?einent  over  to 
the  safe  keeping-  of  his  son  Moroni,  who  completes  the  record  rnd  hides  it  in 
the  hill  Cumorah  to  be  found  bv  Joseph  Smith  in  our  day.  Mormon's  plain 
statement  is  (See  pages  141-2,  "Words  of  Mormon,"  sec.  2-3-4.):  "For  after 
I  had  made  an  abridgement  horn  the  plates  of  Nephi  down  to  the  reig-n  of  this 
king  Benjamin  *  *  *  And  now  I,  Mormon,  proceed  to  finish  out  my  record, 
which  I  take  from  the  plates  of  Nephi;  and  I  make  it  according  to  the  knowl- 
edge and  the  understanding  which  God  has  given  me  *  *  *  and  I  cannot 
write  the  hundredth  part  of  the  things  of  my  people." 

The  plates,  then,  found  by  Joseph  Smith,  and  from  which  this  Book  of 
Mormon  was  translated,  are  not  the  original  records  kept  by  the  various  kings 
and  prophets,  but  an  abridgement,  and  a  very  brief  one,  made  by  Mormon; 
and  were  never  seen,  except  by  the  son  Moroni,  until  they  came  into  Joseph 
Smith's  hands. 


5B 

fit  alone.  And  it  is  altogether  a  work  of  supererogation 
to  furnish  us  the  same  message  twice  over.  Jesus  said  a 
thousand  things  that  are  not  left  on  record  for  us^  and 
so  did  Paul  and  the  other  apostles,  and  undoubtedly, 
in  their  preaching,  often  quoted  largely  from  the  Old 
Testament,  very  likely  whole  chapters  at  a  time.  But 
such  sermons  and  such  quotations  were  not  left  on  record 
for  us,  because  we  have  all  such  passages  already  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  God  never  does  unnecessary  things. 

We  must,  therefore,  conclude  that  at  least  so  much 
of  these  plates  as  contain  such  large  repetitions  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  cannot  have  been  recorded  at  the 
command  of  God  for  our  benefit,  unless  he  would  do  in 
this  country  what  he  never  would  do  in  the  old* 

But  aside  from  these  direct  quotations  from  the  Bible, 
there  are  found  many  Bible  passages  with  variations  in 
the  way  of  attempted  iniprove^nents^  or  embellishTnents. 
Let  me  read  you  an  illustration. — Page  454,  Nephi  4:  10: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  there  came  a  voice  again  unto 
the  people,  and  all  the  people  did  hear,  and  did  witness  of  it, 
sayiag,  O  ye  neople  of  these  great  cities  which  have  fallen,  who 
are  descendants  of  Jacob,  yea,  who  are  of  the  house  of  Israel, 
how  oft  have  I  gathered  you  as  a  hen  gathers  her  chickens 
under  her  wings,  and  have  nourished  you.  And  again,  how 
oft  would  I  have  gathered  you  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chick- 
ens under  her  wings;  yea,  O  ye  people  of  the  house  of  Israel, 
who  have  fallen;  yea,  O  ye  people  of  the  house  of  Israel,  ye 
that  dwell  at  Jerusalem,  as  ye  that  have  fallen;  yea,  how  oft 
would  I  have  gathered  you  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens, 
and  ye  would  not.  O  ye  house  of  Israel  whom  I  have  spared, 
how  oft  will  I  gather  you  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens 
under  her  wings  if  ye  will  repent  and  turn  unto  me  with  full 
purpose  of  heart.  But  if  not,  O  house  of  Israel,  the  places  of 
your  dwelling  shall  become  desolate  until  the  time  of  the  ful- 
filling of  the  covenant  to  your  fathers." 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  incidents  recorded  in  the 
New  Testament,  Christ  blessing  littie  children,  (see  Mat- 
thew, 19,  13-15,)  occupying  three  short  verses,  is  in  this 


59 

way  embellished  and  improved  upon  until  it  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  exhibition  gotten  up  for  a  show;  is  un- 
natural and  distorted,  and  thoroughly  at  variance  with 
the  beautiful  simplicity  of  our  Savior's  character. — 
Page  468,  Nephi,  8:  4,5: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  he  commanded  that  their 
little  children  should  be  brought.  So  they  brought  their 
little  children  and  set  them  down  upon  the  ground  round 
about  him,  and  Jesus  stood  in  the  midst;  aud  the  multitude 
gave  way  till  they  all  had  been  brought  unto  him.  And  it  came 
to  pass  that  when  they  had  all  been  brought,  and  Jesus  stood 
in  the  midst,  he  commanded  the  multitude  that  they  should 
kneel  down  upon  the  ground.  And  it  came  to  pass  that 
when  they  had  knelt  upon  the  ground,  Jesus  groaned 
within  himself,  and  saith,  Father,  I  am  troubled  because  of 
the  wickedness  of  the  people  of  the  house  of  Israel.  And 
when  he  had  said  these  words,  he  himself  also  knelt 
upon  the  earth;  and  behold  he  prayed  unto  the  Father,  and 
the  things  which  he  prayed  cannot  be  written,  and  the  mul- 
titude did  bear  record  who  heard  him.  And  after  this  man- 
ner do  they  bear  record :  the  eye  hath  never  seen,  neither 
hath  the  ear  heard,  before,  so  great  and  marvelous  things  as 
we  saw  and  heard  Jesus  speak  unto  the  Father;  and  no 
tongue  can  speak,  neither  can  there  be  written  by  any  man, 
neither  can  the  hearts  of  men  conceive  so  great  and  marvel- 
ous things  as  we  both  saw  and  heard  Jesus  speak;  and  no  one 
can  conceive  of  the  joy  which  filled  our  souls  at  the  time  we 
heard  him  pray  for  us  unto  the  Father. 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  when  Jesus  had  made  an  end 
of  praying  unto  the  Father,  he  arose;  but  so  great  was  the 
joy  of  the  multitude  that  they  were  overcome.  And  it  came 
to  pass  that  Jesus  spake  unto  them  and  bade  them  arise. 
And  they  arose  from  the  earth,  and  he  said  unto  them,  blessed 
are  ye  because  of  your  faith.  And  now  behold  my  joy  is  full. 
And  when  he  had  said  these  words,  he  wept,  and  the  multi- 
tude bear  record  of  it,  and  he  took  their  little  children,  one 
by  one,  and  blessed  them,  and  prayed  unto  the  Father  for 
them.  And  when  he  had  done  this  he  wept  again,  and  he 
spake  unto  the  multitude,  and  saith  unto  them,  behold  your 
little  ones.  And  as  they  looked  to  behold,  they  cast  their 
eyes  toward  heaven,  and  they  saw  the  heavens  open,  and  they 
saw  angels  descending  out  of  heaven  as  it  were,  in  the  midst 
of  fire,  and  they  came  down  and  encircled  those  little  ones 
about,  and  they  were  encircled  about  with  fire;  and  the 
angels  did  minister  unto  them,  and  the  multitude  did 
see    and  hear  and   bear  record;  and  they  knew  that  their 


6o 

record  is  true;  for  they  all  of  them  did  see  and  hear 
every  man  for  himself;  and  they  were  in  number  about  two 
thousand  and  five  hundred  souls;  and  they  did  consist  of 
men,  women  and  children." 

Just  previous  to  this,  in  the  presence  of  the  same 
congregation  of  2500,  we  have  another  little  New  Test- 
ament incident  embellished  and  improved  upon  until  it 
amounts  to  little  less  than  a  travesty  or  burlesque.  In 
Jno.  20:  27,  the  doubting  Thomas  is  permitted  to  feel  the 
print  of  the  nails  in  the  risen  Savior's  hands,  and  to 
thrust  his  hand  into  the  sword  wound  in  the  side,  to 
strengthen  his  wavering  faith  in  his  risen  Lord.  But 
now,  read  page  456,  Nephi  5:  6,  7: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  Lord  spake  unto  them,  say- 
ing, arise  and  come  forth  unto  me,  that  ye  may  thrust  your 
hands  into  my  side,  and  also  that  ye  may  feel  the  prints  of  the 
nails  in  my  hands  and  in  my  feet,  that  ye  may  know  that  I 
am  the  God  of  Israel,  and  the  God  of  the  whole  earth,  and 
have  been  slain  for  the  sins  of  the  world. 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  multitude  went  forth  and 
thrust  their  hands  into  his  side,  and  did  feel  the  prints  of  the 
nails  in  his  hands  and  in  his  feet;  and  this  they  did  do,  going 
forth,  one  by  one,  until  they  had  all  gone  forth,  and  did  see 
with  their  eyes,  and  did  feel  with  their  hands,  and  did  know 
of  a  surety,  and  did  bear  record,  that  it  was  he  of  whom  it 
was  written  by  the  prophets  that  should  come." 

Just  think  of  it,  friends,  2500  people  go  forth  one  by- 
one  and  *  'thrust  their  hands  into  his  side,  and  did  feel  the 
print  of  the  nails  in  his  hands  and  in  his  feet.'*  It  would 
be  very  rapid  work,  requiring  so  much  haste  as  to  give 
the  whole  thing  the  appearance  of  a  farce,  to  supposeyfz/^ 
persons  could  thus  pass  the  Savior  every  minute,  giving 
each  one  only  twelve  seconds  to  thrust  his  hand  into  the 
side  and  feel  the  print  of  the  nails  both  in  his  hands  and 
in  his  feet.  But  at  this  rapid  rate  it  would  require  just 
eight  hours  and  twenty  mimdes  of  time  / 

The  author  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  must  have  had 
a  wonderful  development  of  the  marvelous  in  his  make 


6i 

up,  for  a  large  number  of  the  incidents  and  the  miracles 
of  the  Bible  are  in  this  way  improved  upon,  until  the  im- 
pression siezes  hold  upon  you  that  the  author  is  bent  up- 
on beating  the  Bible,  casting  its  miracles  and  its  wonder- 
ful incidents  completely  in  the  shade,  at  whatever  strain 
upon  the  readers  credulity,  or  sacrifice  of  reason  or  com- 
mon sense. 

For  instance,  the  three  hours  of  darkness  extending 
over  the  land  of  Judea,  and  the  earthquake  and  the  rend- 
ing of  the  rocks,  that  accompanied  the  Savior* s  agony 
upon  the  cross,  as  if  nature  were  expressing  sympathy 
with  her  suffering  Creator,  and  that  ceased  when  his  ag- 
onized soul  was  released,  is  not  only  repeated  here  in 
this  country,  but  is  extended  through  three  full  days; 
with  such  a  darkness  as  remands  that  old  miracle  in 
Egypt  to  the  shades;  and  with  such  accompaniments 
as  the  eye  never  saw  or  pen  ever  recorded  before  or  since. 
Its  account  occupies  four  and  a  half  pages,  being  chapter 
four  of  Nephi,  pages  450-455.* 

The  birth  of  Jesus  Christ  was  signalized  in  his  own 
homeland  by  two  beautiful  and  appropriate  occurrences: 
the  appearance  of  a  star  to  guide  the  eastern  magi  to  his 
birthplace,  and  the  angels  appearance  and  announce- 
ment to  the  watchful  shepherds  on  the  plains  of  Bethle- 
hem, neither  of  which  was  seen  or  heard  by  any  other 
parties.  But  how  little  and  insignificant  compared  with 
the  occurrences  on  this  continent  that  same  night!  The 
people  had  been  prepared  by  years  of  prophesying  and 
were  on  the  tiptoe  of  expectancy  as  the  designated  time 
drew  near.  As  the  year  was  ushered  in,  ** Behold  the 
prophesies  of  the  prophets  began  to  be  fulfilled  more  fully, 


♦For  a  full   account   of  this  remarkable    occurrence,    please  see  next 
lecture. 


62 

for  there  began  to  be  greater  signs  and  greater  miracles 
wrought  among  the  people. ' '  But  there  were  wicked  un- 
believers in  those  days,  and  they  were  cruel  enough  to  set 
apart  a  day  ''that  all  those  who  believed  in  these  tradit- 
ions shouldbe  put  to  death,  except  the  sign  should  come 
to  pass  which  had  been  given  by  Samuel  the  prophet."  - 
At  this  the  good  Nephi^s  heart  became 

"exceeding  sorrowful.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  he  went  out 
and  bowed  himself  down  upon  the  earth  and  cried  mightily 
unto  the  Lord  all  the  day;  and,  behold  the  voice  of  the  Lord, 
came  unto  him,  saying,  lift  up  your  head  and  be  of  good  cheer, 
for,  behold  the  time  is  at  hand,  and  on  this  night  shall  the 
sign  be  given,  and  on  the  morrow  come  I  into  the  world." 

And  sure  enough  this  promise  was  fulfilled. 

*  *  *  "For  behold  at  the  going  down  of  the  sun 
there  was  no  darkness;  and  the  people  began  to  be  astonish- 
ed, because  there  was  no  darkness  when  the  night  came. 
And  there  were  many,  who  had  not  believed  the  words  of  the 
prophets,  fell  to  the  earth  and  became  as  if  they  were  dead 
*  *  *  yea,  in  fine,  all  the  people  upon  the  face  of  the  whole 
eartl:,  from  the  west  to  the  east,  both  in  the  land  north  (North 
America)  and  in  the  land  south  (South  America,)  were  so  ex- 
ceedingly astonished  that  they  fell  to  the  earth;  for  they 
knew  that  the  prophets  had  testified  of  these  things  for  many 
years,  and  that  the  sign  which  had  been  given  was  already 
at  hand*;  and  they  began  to  fear  because  of  their  iniquity  and 
their  unbelief. 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  there  was  no  darkness  in  all 
that  night,  but  it  was  as  light  as  though  it  was  midday.  And 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  sun  did  rise  in  the  morning  again, 
according  to  its  proper  order;  and  they  knew  that  it  was  the 
day  that  the  Lord  should  be  born,  because  of  the  sign  which 
had  been  given.  And  it  came  to  pass  also,  that  a  new  star 
did  appear,  according  to  the  word." 

Friends,  this  is  evidently  the  most  stupendous  phy- 
sical miracle  ever  accomplished  since  God  first  called  the 
sun  into  being,  for  the  sun  goes  down  as  usual  and  is  seen 
to  rise  the  next  morning  at  its  proper  time;  hence,  the 
Creator,  in  some  monster  chemical  laboratory,  must  man- 
ufacture light  to  furnish  both  these  vast  continents  enough 


63 

to  make  it  '  'as  light  as  though  it  was  midday' '  for  twelve 
consecutive  hours;  or  else  suspend  some  huge  reflector 
at  such  an  angle  in  mid-heavens  as  to  throw  upon  these 
two  continents  the  full  power  of  the  sun's  rays  during  the 
whole  night.  Joshua's  miracle  of  lengthening  a  day  by 
commanding  the  sun  to  stand  still  was  mere  child's  play 
compared  with  this !  Evidently,  no  ordinary  miracles  can 
satisfy  the  versatile  genius  and  the  brilliant  imagination 
of  the  author  of  this  book. 

One  more  illustration.  The  building  of  Noah's 
ark  is  completely  cast  into  the  shade  by  the  feat  of  Jared 
and  his  company,  who  built  eight  barges,  or  vessels,  all 
''according  to  the  instructions  of  the  Lord."  Let  me 
read  you  from  Ether,  i:  5 — page  519: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  brother  of  Jared  did  go  to 
work,  and  also  his  brother,  and  built  bargesafter  the  manner 
which  they  had  built,  according  to  the  instructions  of  the 
Lord.  And  they  were  small,  and  they  were  light  upon  the 
water,  even  like  uato  the  lightness  of  a  fowl  upon  the  water; 
and  they  were  built  after  a  manner  that  they  were  exceeding 
tight,  even  that  they  would  hold  water  like  unto  a  dish;  and 
the  bottom  thereof  was  tight  like  unto  a  dish;  and  the  sides 
thereof  were  tight  like  unto  a  dish;  and  the  ends  thereof  were 
peaked;  and  the  top  thereof  was  tight  like  unto  a  dish;  and 
the  length  thereof  was  the  length  of  a  tree;  and  the  door 
thereof,  when  it  was  shut,  was  tight,  like  unto  a  dish." 

When    they    are   finished    the    brother    of    Jared 

'*(3ried  unto  the  Lord  saying,  O  Lord,  I  have  performed  the 
work  which  thou  hast  commanded  me,  and  I  have  made  the 
barges  according  as  thou  hast  directed  me." 

Please  notice,  friends,  that  they  are  built  exactly 
''according  to  the  instructions  of  the  Lord,''  But  lo  and 
behold!  the  Lord  \idiS  forgotten  two  very  important  mat- 
ters. 

a.  No  ventilation  has  been  provided — as  tight  as  an 
egg-shell — and  so  the  brother  of  Jared  informs  the  Lord 
of  the  omission. 


64 

**And  also  we  shall  perish,  for  in  them  we  cannot  breathe, 
save  it  is  the  air  which  is  in  them;  therefore  we  shall  perish. 
And  the  Lord  said  unto  the  brother  of  Jared,  behold,  thou 
shalt  make  a  hole  in  the  top  thereof,  and  also  in  the  bottom 
thereof;  and  when  thou  shalt  suffer  for  air,  thou  shalt  unstop 
the  hole  thereof,  and  receive  air.  And  if  so  be  that  the  water 
come  in  upon  thee,  behold  ye  shall  stop  the  hole  thereof,  that 
ye  may  not  perish  in  the  flood.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
brother  of  Jared  did  so,  according  as  the  Lord  had  com- 
manded." 

The  exact  object  of  the  hole  in  the  bottom  does  not 
clearly  appear;  nor  is  it  stated  how  they  are  to  ^et  air  to 
breathe  when  the  waves  are  breaking  over  them  so  fierce- 
ly that  they  have  to  close  the  hole  at  the  top;  for  the  se- 
quel tells  us  positively: 

*'And  it  came  to  pass  that  they  were  many  times  buried 
in  the  depths  of  the  sea,  because  of  the  mountain  waves  which 
broke  upon  them,  and  also  the  great  and  terrible  tempests 
which  were  caused  by  the  fierceness  of  the  wind." 

b.  But  now  another  sad  deficiency  is  discovered: 

"And  he  cried  again  unto  the  Lord  saying,  O  Lord,  be- 
hold I  have  done  even  as  thou  hast  commanded  me;  and  I 
have  prepared  the  vessels  for  my  people,  and  behold  there  is 
no  light  in  them.  Behold,  O  Lord,  wilt  thou  suffer  that  we 
shall  cross  the  great  water  in  darkness?" 

And  the  Lord,  apparently,  is  puzzled  to  know  how 
to  manage  this  matter,  and  so  he  asks  advice  of  the 
brother  of  Jared: 

"And  the  Lord  said  unto  the  brother  of  Jared,  what  will 
ye  that  I  should  do  that  ye  may  have  light  in  your  vessels? 
For  behold,  ye  cannot  have  windows,  for  they  will  be  dashed 
in  pieces;  n^-ither  shall  ye  take  fire  with  you,  for  ye  shall  not 
go  by  the  light  of  fire;  for  behold,ye  shall  be  as  a  whale  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea;  for  the  mountain  waves  shall  dash  upon  you. 
Nevertheless,  I  will  bring  you  up  again  out  of  the  depths  of 
the  sea;  for  the  winds  have  gone  forth  out  of  my  mouth,  and 
also  the  rains  and  the  floods  have  I  sent  forth.  And  behold, 
I  prepare  you  against  these  things;  for  howbeit,  ye  cannot 
cross  this  crreat  deep,  save  I  prepare  you  against  the  waves  of 
the  sea,  and  the  winds  which  have  gone  forth,  and  the  floods 


65 

which  shall  come.  Therefore  what  will  ye  that  I  should  pre- 
pare for  you  that  ye  may  have  light  when  ye  are  swallowed  up 
in  the  depths  of  the  sea?" 

And  the  brother  of  Jared  was  quite  equal  to  the 
emergency.  He  was  evidently  a  man  of  remarkable  re- 
sources. He  went  up  into  a  very  high  mountain 
**and  did  moulten  out  of  a  rock  sixteen  small  stones,  and 
they  were  white  and  clear  even  as  transparent  glass.*'* 

And  those  sixteen  stones  he  presented  before  the 
Lord;  and  after  an  earnest  prayer,  in  which  he  informs  the 
Lord  of  his  ability  to  do  anything  he  pleases,  he  says: 

"Therefore  touch  these  stones,  O  Lord,  with  thy  finger, 
and  prepare  them  that  they  may  shine  forth  in  the  darkness; 
and  they  shall  shine  forth  unto  us  in  the  vessels  which  we 
have  prepared,  that  we  may  have  light  while  we  shall  cross 
the  sea." 

And  the  Lord  did  so,  and  touched  the  stones  one  by 
one  with  his  finger,  and  they  became  luminous  with  light, 
and  were  placed  two  in  each  barge,  one  at  each  end. 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  when  they  had  prepared  all 
manner  of  food,  that  thereby  they  might  subsist  upon  the 
water  and  also  fo<»(l  for  their  flocks  and  herds,  and  whatso- 
ever beast,  or  animal,  or  fowl  that  they  should  carry  with  them. 
And  it  came  to  pass  that  when  they  had  done  all  these  things, 
they  got  aboard  of  their  vessels  or  barges,  and  set  forth  into 
the  sea,  commending  themselves  unto  the  Lord  their  God." 

Perhaps  we  should  not  stop  to  cavil  over  such 
small  matters  as  to  who  pushed  these  vessels  ,or  barges, 
off  the  shore  when  they  were  all  loaded;  nor  how  they 
managed  for  344  days  without/r^.y^  water  to  drink;  nor  yet 
the  statement,  **And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  Lord  God 
caused  that  there  should  ?i  furious  wind  blow  upon  the 
face  of  the  waters  toward  the  promised  land,''  and  that  this 
wind  continued  to  blow  furiously  in  one  direction,  day 

♦Just  a  little  early  in  the  history  of  the  race  (loo  years  after  the  flood)  to 
speak  of  grlass. 


66 

and  night,  for  344  days,  driving  them  through  the  Indian 
Ocean  and  across  the  mighty  Pacific,  through  its  gulf 
streams  and  all,  meanwhile  keeping  all  those  eight  bar- 
ges together  and  landing  them  all  safely  on  the  shores  of 
the  new  world!  A  miracle  compared  with  which  all  the 
ordinary  miracles  of  the  Bible  are  tame  and  almost  in- 
sipid. 

There  are  several  other  historical  incidents,  founded 
upon  Bible  narratives,  with  attempted  improvements, 
that  I  had  hoped  to  review  this  evening,  but  time  will 
allow  only  a  reference,  such  as  the  building  of  a  temple 
after  the  pattern  of  Solomon's  temple,  by  six  or  eight 
men  and  a  few  boys,  in  the  space  of  perhaps  three  or 
four  years  (the  exact  time  not  given,  but  it  could  not 
have  been  more),  while  Solomon's  temple  required  seven 
years  and  the  employment  of  153,300  men. — See  II 
Nephi,  4:  3.  The  beheading  of  John  the  Baptist, 
accomplished  through  the  dancing  of  Herodias;  worked 
over  by  the  daughter  of  Jared,  who  sought  to  secure 
through  her  dancing  the  head  of  her  grandfather. 
— See  Ether,  3:  11,   12. 

Joshua's  plan  of  capturing  Ai  by  an  ambush,  made  to 
do  valuable  service  against  the  enemies  of  the  Nephites 
on  at  least  two  different  occasions. — See  Alma,  26:22,31. 
Numerous  other  Bible  incidents,  worked  over  until  the 
plagiarism  is  almost  hidden  from  view  by  the  extra  em- 
bellishments; all  of  which  look  very  much  unlike  God, 
and  partake  very  much  of  human  weakness. 


But,  we  are  not  yet  done  with  these  Bible  quotations. 

Suppose  a  man,  to-day,  should  write  a  book  and 
attach  to  it  the  name  of  some  noted  author  of  two  hun- 
dred years  ago,  and  attempt  to  make  the  world  believe 


67 

that  it  really  was  the  production  of  that  old  author,  hid- 
den from  the  public,  for  certain  reasons,  until  now.  How 
could  the  truth  be  ascertained?  In  several  ways;  one 
way  would  be  this: 

During  the  past  200  years,  our  English  language 
has  been  undergoing  a  great  many  changes;  many  old 
words  have  become  obsolete  and  are^  no  longer  used, 
while  thousands  of  new  words  have  been  coined  from  the 
various  languages  with  which  our  language  has  come  in 
contact,  or  have  grown  out  of  important  events,  or  rev- 
olutions, or  scientific  discoveries  that  have  during  these 
200  years  occurred.  Now,  if  upon  examination,  this 
book,  purporting  to  be  200  years  old,  is  found  to  be 
written  in  the  current  language  of  the  present  day,  full 
of  words  and  phrases  and  idiomatic  expressions  that 
were  wholly  unknown  to  the  English  langu  age  200  years 
ago,  this  fact  alone  would  furnish  the  most  conclusive  pos- 
sible proof  of  the  fraud.  It  could  not  have  been  written 
200  years  ago.  It  must  have  been  written  during  the 
present  age. 

An  actual  illustration  of  this  method  of  criticism, 
and  the  certainty  of  its  results,  may  be  of  interest. 

In  all  the  old  copies  of  our  Bible,  you  will  remem- 
ber, there  used  to  be  found  between  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testaments,  a  number  of  books  called  the  ''Apoc- 
raphy,''  The  time  was,  in  the  early  ages  of  the  Christian 
church,  when  a  large  majority  of  the  Christians  in  the 
world  believed  those  books  were  inspired  of  God,  and 
therefore  should  have  a  place  in  the  Bible.  Not  time 
this  evening  to  explain  to  you  how  this  came  about, 
though  it  is  a  very  interesting  page  of  history.  I  will 
simply  select  one  of  these  books  and  show  how  easily 
careful  students  have  ascertained,  beyond  the  possibility 


68 

of  question,  that  it  is  spurious,  I  refer  to  the  book 
called  the  **Bookof  Wisdom."  It  is  a  beautiful  book, 
in  many  particulars,  finely  composed;  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the 
finest  human  compositions  of  ancient  times.  But  it  pro- 
fesses to  have  been  written  by  Solomon,  the  great  king 
Solomon,  son  of  David.  Now,  Solomon  Hved  looo 
years  before  Christ,  at  a  time  when  the  Hebrew  language 
was  written  and  spoken  in  its  purity;  and  all  Solomon's 
writings  that  have  come  down  to  us  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment scriptures  are  found  in  the  Hebrew  language. 

Four  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Solomon,  the 
Jewish  nation  was  carried  in  captivity  to  Babylon,  the 
capital  of  Chaldea.  There  they  remained  seventy  years ; 
and  the  pure  Hebrew  of  the  Jews  came  in  constant  con- 
tact with  the  Chaldaic  language.  The  result  was  per- 
fectly natural.  The  Jews  learned  to  make  use  of  a  large 
number  of  Chaldaic  words  and  phrases  and  idioms.  The 
pure  Hebrew  became  corrupted  by  having  incorporated 
into  it  a  large  amount  of  the  Chaldaic.  This  mixture  is 
very  clearly  seen  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  the  books  of 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  the  prophecies  of  Ezekiel  and  all 
the  minor  prophets  who  wrote  during  the  time  or  after 
the  captivity  at  Babylon.  Their  writings  are  full  of 
Chaldaisms  that  is,  words  and  phrases  and  peculiar  id- 
ioms that  they  learned  to  use  while  living  in  Babylon. 

Now,  this  ''Book  of  Wisdom"  just  mentioned,  is 
filled  full  of  Chaldaisms,  or  Chaldaic  words  and  phrases 
and  idiomatic  expressions  which  had  not  been  heard  of, 
or  found  in  the  Hebrew  language /t?r  at  least  four  hun- 
dred years  after  the  death  of  Solomon,  Proving  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  a  doubt  that  the  book  was  written 
either  during,  or  after  the  captivity  at  Babylon;  and,  of 
course,  was  not  written  by  Solomon.     And  therefore  a 


69 

fraud — a  lie  upon  the  face  of  it — an  attempt  to  deceive 
the  public,  and  gain  for  itself  credit  and  influence,  and 
perhaps  divine  authority  by  forging  the  name  of  that 
wisest  and  most  illustrious  of  men,  Solomon,  as  its  author. 

In  a  similar  way  has  been  shown  the  spurious  char- 
acter of  a  multitude  of  books  written  in  the  first,  second 
and  third  centuries  after  Christ,  purporting  to  be  authen- 
tic lives  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  genuine  letters  of  the  apos- 
tles, with  an  apostle's  name  attached.  They  are  either 
written  in  the  current  language  of  their  day,  and  thus 
easily  betray  their  real  age,  or  else  the  attempt  to  imi- 
tate the  apostles'  style  and  language  is  too  apparent  to 
deceive  the  critical  scholar.  ''Murder  will  out.*'  In 
every  attempt  at  fraud,  the  cloven  foot  will  show  itself 
somewhere,  however  careful  and  determined  the  effort 
to  cover  it  up. 

Well  now,  the  Book  of  Mormon  purports  to  have 
been  written,  the  first  part  of  it,  by  a  Jew  named  Nephi, 
a  son  of  Lehi,  who  left  the  city  of  Jerusalem  with  his 
father  in  the  reign  of  Zedekiah,  king  of  Judah,  or  about 
six  hundred  years  before  Christ.  Nearly  one  fourth  of 
the  entire  book  was  written  by  this  man  Nephi;  the  bal- 
ance was  written  by  his  brother  Jacob  and  their  descend- 
ants, covering  a  period  of  nearly  one  thousand  years.* 
The  entire  book  was  written  or  engraven  upon  plates  in 
a  sort  of  Hebraized  Egyptian  language,  or,  as  the  author 
states  it: 

*'I  make  a  record  in  the  language  of  my  father, 
which  consists  of  the  learning  of  the  Jews  and  the  lang- 
uage of  the  Egyptians,"  whatever  that  may  mean.  I 
believe  the  last  writer  Moroni  decides  upon  naming  this 
nondescript  language  the  ''Reformed  Egyptian."     And 

♦Properly  speaking-,  Mormon  and  has  son  Moroni  wrote  the  entire  book, 
but  Nephi  and  his  descentants,  as  above  stited,  furnished  all  tht  material; 


70 

I  must  frankly  confess  to  you,  friends,  /  do  not  like  the 
look  of  this.     It  has  the  scent  of  fraud  i?i  it. 

The  pure  Hebrew  was,  at  the  time  Nephi  left  Jeru- 
salem, the  7iative  toyigue  of  the  Jews  ;  it  was  exclusively 
Vieir  written  language.  Every  book  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment up  to  that  time  had  been  written  in  the  pure  He- 
brew. And  how  this  man,  who,  the  book  tells  us,  was 
born  and  raised  right  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  could  have 
used  from  his  childhood  the  Egyptian  language,  is  in- 
deed singular,  considering  the  Jews'  hatj^ed  of  the 
Egyptians,  and  their  strong  veneration  amounting  almost 
to  adoration  of  their  native  Hebrew. 

And  the  singularity  of  the  thing  is  only  increased 
when  we  remember  that  the  Egyptian  language  was  a 
very  awkward,  unwieldly,  cumbersome  and  frequently 
unintelligible  language  as  compared  with  the  Hebrew, 
which  was  the  most  beautiful,  expressive  and  compre- 
hensive language  then  in  use,  peculiarly  well  adapted  to 
be  the  medium  for  communicating  God's  thoughts  and 
God's  wisdom  to  the  world.  In  fact,  the  prophet 
Moroni  frankly  admits  this  superiority  of  the  Hebrew 
over  the  reformed  Egyptian.     He  says: 

"And  now  behold  we  have  written  this  record  according 
to  onr  knowledge  in  the  characters  which  are  called  among 
us,  the  reformed  Egyptian,  being  handed  down  and  altered 
by  lis  according  to  our  manner  of  speech.  And  if  our  plates 
had  been  sufficiently  large,  we  should  have  written  in  He- 
brew; but  the  Hebrew  hath  been  altered  by  us  also;  and  if 
we  could  have  written  in  the  Hebrew,  behold  ye  would  have 
had  no  imperfection  in  our  record.  But  the  Lord  knoweth 
the  things  which  we  have  written,  and  also  that  noue  other 
people  knoweth  our  language."— Mormon,  4:  8. 

This  statement  is  positive,  that  had  we  used  the  He- 
brew instead  of  the  Reformed  Egyptain  there  would 
have  been  *'no  imperfection*  in  our  record." 

*A  lame  and  silly  attempt,  this,  at  fuiding-  an  excuse  for  all  the  blunders 
and  imperfections  in  style,  etc.,  already  pointed  out  in  the  Book  of  Mormon. 


71 


And  now,  friends,  what  do  you  imagine  can  be  the 
reason,  what  vast  and  weighty  consideration  can  be  a 
sufficient  inducement  to  allow  blunders  and  imperfec- 
tions enough  to  curse  the  book  forever,  and  prove  that 
it  could  never  have  been  inspired  of  God?  when  by 
simply  using  the  Hebrew  language  all  would  have  been 
as  perfect  and  complete  as  the  most  exacting  could 
desire,  **no  imperfection  in  our  record." 

The  reason  given  is,  that  his  plates  were  not  large 
eiioiigh  for  the  Hebrew.  *'If  our  plates  had  been  suffi- 
ciently large  we  should  have  written  in  Hebrew."  That 
is,  the  Hebrew  requires  more  space  than  the  Egyptian. 
Friends,  I  can  characterize  this  by  no  smoother  langu- 
age than  that  it  -is  a  bold  and  inipudeyit  lie^  evidently  de- 
signed to  cover  the  real  reason  why  the  plates  were  found 
in  the  Reformed  Egyptian. 

a.  To  show  you  the  difference  between  the  Egyptian 
and  the  Hebrew  languages,  both  as  to  the  space  they 
occupy,  and  the  ease  of  writing,  or  engraving  upon  plates, 
I  have  had  transcribed  the  following  two  words  as  speci- 
mens, taken  from  the  Edinburgh  Encyclopedia,  article 
''Hieroglyphics"  (Egyptian): 


Hebrew. 
Egyptian. 


Pronounced.         Meaning. 


Mirkebeth. 


Chariot. 


'^T^J'^lll^S^      Markabuta.  Chariot. 


/WWW 


Hebrew. 
Egyptian. 


\ 


Kinnor. 


Kenaanauor. 


Harp. 
Harp. 


72 

And  that  these  two  Egyptian  words  are  by  no  means 
exceptional*  ones  can  be  very  easily  seen  by  anyone  who 
will  examine  the  very  exhaustive  article  above  mentioned. 

b.  But  even  if  the  statement  from  Moroni  were  true, 
if  the  Hebrew  required  larger  plates,  if  it  required  ten 
fold  mor^  space  than  the  Reformed  Egyptian,  the  ex- 
cuse would  come  with  ill  grace  in  a  book  that  has  more 
plates  in  it,  and  more  said  about  them,  than  any  book, 
perhaps,  ever  written.  All  the  way  from  the  first 
Nephi  to  Mormon,  plates,  almost  by  the  wagon  load,  are 
mentioned.  The  following  are  only  a  few  of  the  places 
where  plates  in  great  abundance  are  mentioned: 

See  pages  2,  3,  11,  16,  44,  62,  63,  138,  139,  141,  142, 
144,  145,  161,  162,  204,  394,  395,  549.t  In  three  places 
at  least,  Mormon  says  that  his  abridgement  from  all  these 
various  records  contains  less  than  one  hundredth  part 
of  the  originals  that  were  in  his  hands. 

"But  behold,  a  hundredth  part  of  the  proceedings 
of  this  people  cannot  be  contained  in  this  work;  but 
behold,  there  are  many  books  and  many  records  of  every 
kind,  and  they  have  been  kept  chiefly  by  the  Nephites; 
and  they  have  been  handed  down  from  one  generation 
to  another  by  the  Nephites." — Heleman,  2:  4,  or  p.  394. 
See  also  pages  142  and  549. 

All  these  writings,  remember,  claim  to  be  inspired 
of  God,  and  were  engraven  at  his  command,  one  hun- 
dred times  more  than  were  needed  for  this  Book  of  Mor- 
mon. One  may,  therefore,  be  excused  for  calling  into 
question  the  statement  that  there  were  not  plates  enough 

*Among  the  pure  hieroglyphics  an  occasional  word  occurs  exceedingly 
brief.  Instance  the  happy  conception  that  made  a  simple  circle  represent  the 
word  eternity.  lUit  these  brief  word  signs  were  the  exception ;  when  words 
yiexe^  spelled  out  in  the  usual  way,  they  occupy  two  or  three  times  as  much 
space  as  the  Hebrew.     See  also  foot  note  on  page  74. 

fThe  edition  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  I  use  was  published  in  Salt  Lake, 
in  1876,  by  David  O.  Calder. 


73 

to  allow  the  use  of  the  Hebrew,  and  thus  have  secured 
"no  imperfection  in  our  record,"  when  a  hundred  times 
more  material  than  was  actually  needed  had  already 
been  engraven  upon  plates,  at  the  command  of  God. 

Why  then,  friends,  should  Nephi  and  his  successors 
to  the  time  of  Moroni,  have  rejected  their  own  native 
language,  so  well  adapted  to  the  work  they  had  in  hand, 
and  have  selected,  instead,  a  language  they  freely  ack- 
nowledge is  imperfect,  and  poorly  fitted  for  their  use,  and 
then  attempt  to  deceive  their  readers  as  to  the  real 
reason,  unless  the  supposition  of  fraud  is  the  true  expla- 
nation. 

Mr.  Smith  and  his  helpers,  if  he  had  such,  were 
certainly  sharp  enough  to  know  that  had  they  represent- 
ed those  plates  to  have  been  written  in  the  Hebrew 
language,  there  were  a  thousand  Hebrew  scholars  all 
over  the  world,  who  could  easily  and  readily  have  ex- 
posed the  fraud.  For  the  words  and  phrases  and  id- 
ioms of  that  language  are  so  peculiar;  its  way  of  ex- 
pressing thought  so  different  from  any  other  language 
on  earth  that  no  honest  or  correct  translation  could  pos- 
sibly hide  or  cover  up  its  peculiarities.  But  by  having 
those  plates  engraved  in  a  language  that  no  person  at 
the  present  day  knew  anything  about,  7io  scholar  on 
earth  could  detect  the  fraud  in  the  usual  way.  The  criti- 
cisms would  be  placed  outside  the  pale  of  oriental  schol- 
arship at  least. 

And  yet,  friends,  there  are  some  rules,  some 
facts,  that  must  be  true  even  of  the  Egyptian  language 
after  it  has  been  mixed  up  with  **the  learning  of 
the  Jews.  "  And  one  fact  is  that  the  Egyptian 
language  had  only  a  few  words  in  it.  The  Hebrew, 
as  compared  with  the  other  ancient  languages,  is  uni- 


74 

versally  acknowledged  to  be  exceedingly  rich  and  com- 
prehensive. And  yet  the  total  number  of  words  in  it  is 
limited  to  a  few  thousand;  and  its  primary  words,  its 
roots,  the  foundations  of  the  language,  are  limited  to  a 
few  hundred.  And  the  same  thing  was  necessarily  true 
of  all  the  earHest  languages  on  the  earth.*  Language 
is  a  growth.  As  different  nations,  and  diverse  peoples 
mingle  with  each  other,  rub  against  each  other,  new 
ideas  are  formed,  new  facts  discovered,  new  thoughts  de- 
veloped; and,  therefore,  7iew  words  have  to  be  coined  to 
express  those  new  thoughts.  Hence,  the  Greek  and  the 
Latin  languages,  being  a  later  growth  than  either  the 
Hebrew  or  the  Egyptian,  are  found  with  a  greatly  en- 
larged vocabulary.  The  Latin,  for  instance,  has  several 
times  as  many  words  in  it  as  the  older  Hebrew. 

And  even  more  rapid  has  been  the  change  in  mod- 
ern tijnes,  keeping  pace  with  the  rapid  strides  in  every 
branch  of  human  learning,  until  our  English  language 
is  fairly  loaded  down  with  the  wealth  of  all  the  past;  and 
contains,  probably,  tweitty  times  as  many  words  as  either 
the  ancient  Hebrew  or  the  Egyptian.  And  thousands 
of  these  words  are,  of  course,  new  words,  made  neces- 
sary to  express  new  thoughts,  new  facts  in  science^  new 
facts  in  human  experience,  new  views  of  truth,  enlarged 
conceptions  of  old  truths  that  require  new  forms  of  ex- 

*TIie  first  attempt  of  the  Egypti:»ns,  in  the  earliest  ag-e,  to  reduce  their 
spoken  hmguag-e  to  writing-,  was  the  invention  of  what  are  called  ^^hierogly- 
phicsy^  a  system  of  symbol,  or  sign  writing;  for  instance,  they  wished  to  write 
the  word  "horse;"  having-  no  alphabet,  or  letters  of  any  kind,  no  way  o^ spell- 
ing the  word,  they  made  ^. picture  of  a  horse;  a  stairway  was  represented  by  a 
few  steps;  a  tree,  bird,  etc.,  by  the  thing  itself  in  outline.  Thus  every  object 
in  nature  was  expressed  so  far  as  possible  by  its  picture,  while  ideas  not 
objects^  were  expressed  by  certain  symbols;  as,  the  word  eternity,  by 
a  circle;  weakness,  by  a  human  form  bending^  over  etc.,  etc.  When 
this  method  of  writing  had  i cached  its  limit,  the  language  was  found  to  con- 
tain about  qoo  v/ords,  altogether. 

Intercourse  with  other  nations,  probably,  after  a  time  suggested  the  in- 
vention of  an  alphabet  with  letters  representing  the  elementary  sounds  of 
their  spoken  language,  with  what  success,  the  two  specimens  on  page  71  will 
sho'¥\'-. 


75 

pression.  There  are  thousands  of  words,  therefore, 
that  express  thoughts  and  facts  and  ideas  that  were  never 
dreamed  of  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  world;  and  that  no 
word  or  combination  of  words  in  the  ancient  Hebrew  or 
Egyptian  could  express. 

If,  therefore,  upon  a  careful  examination  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  any  such  words  shall  be  found  in  it, 
words  or  phrases  or  forms  of  expression  conveying 
thoughts  that  are  known  to  be  entirely  modern,  wholly 
unknown  to  either  the  Hebrew  or  the  Egyptian  langu- 
age anciently,  this  would  furnish  the  most  indubitable 
proof  that  the  book  is  a  modern  compositio7i^  and  there- 
fore not  what  it  claims  to  be. 

Time  will  allow  the  mention  of  only  a  few  words  by 
way  of  illustration. 

And  the  first  word  that  attracted  my  attention  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  book,  was  the  name  of  Lehi's  third 
son,  Sam.  I  said  to  myself,  "Sam,  Sam,  Sam.  Well, 
really,  here  is  a  boy  six  hundred  years  before  Christ 
who  has  the  bonifide  Yankee  nickname  for  Samuel." 
There  is  certainly  nothing  Hebrewistic  about  this  name, 
nor  does  it  sound  like  any  Egyptian  name  we  ever  heard; 
possibly,  however,  by  putting  the  Hebrew  and  the 
Egyptian  languages  together,  or  by  adding  to  the 
Egyptian  **the  learning  of  the  Jews,  ^'  this  name,  *'Sam," 
might  be  manufactured,  I  would  not,  therefore,  offer 
this  as  conclusive  evidence  of  the  modern  origin  of  the 
book,  but  I  confess  it  started  in  my  own  mind  the  first 
grave  suspicion  in  that  direction. 

But  here  is  a  word,  on  page  206,  that  by  no  possi- 
ble chance  could  have  been  used  in  those  early  ages : 

"I  myself  have  laboured  with  all  the  power  of  faculties 
which  I  have  possessed." 


76 

''Faculty"  is  from  the  Latin,  and  was  entirely  un- 
known to  either  the  Hebrew  or  the  Egyptian.  But  es- 
pecially in  its  present  use  as  designating  the  various 
powers,  or  attributes  of  the  mind,  it  is  a  modern  word  ex- 
clusively. The  ancients  knew  nothing  of  such  a  division 
of  the  mind,  or  soul  into  faculties.  The  presence,  there- 
fore, of  this  one  word  alone  in  the  Book  of  Mormon  is 
sufficient  to  prove  that  it  is  not  a  translation  of  the  an- 
cient Egyptian  language,  as  no  such  word  with  such  a 
meaning  is  found  in  that  or  any  other  ancient  language. 

The  word  "popular,"  on  page  209.  A  certain  mis- 
chief maker  is  represented  as  going  about  among  the 
people  declaring: 

*'That  every  priest,  and  teacher  ought  to  become  popular; 
and  they  ought  not  to  labor  with  their  hands,  but  that  they 
ought  to  be  supported  by  the  people.*' 

"Popular"  is  also  a  Latin  word  from  ^'populos''' 
meaning  ^ 'peopled  But  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used 
in  this  place,  it  is  ertiirely  modern.  In  fact,  the  whole 
sentence  is  modern  in  its  conception,  peculiarly  so.  It  is, 
indeed,  strange  that  the  author  could  have  so  far  lost  his 
wits  as  to  allow  his  anxiety  to  slap  clergymen  of  the 
present  day  in  the  face,  to  lead  him  into  a  blunder  that 
proves  his  work  a  fraud  beyond  a  possibility  of  question* 
For  over  and  over  again  the  Book  of  Mormon  declares 
that  Lehi  and  his  descendants  kept  the  law  of  Moses^ 
with  the  greatest  carefulness,  until  Christ  came  who  set 
aside  the  law  by  fulfilling  it.  So  exact  were  they  in  this 
observance  that  Nephi  and  his  people  built  a  magnificent 
temple,  patterned  after  the  temple  of  Solomon,  almost 
immediately  upon  their  arrival  in  this  country,  and  set 
apart  their  two  youngest  brothers  as  priests.  Well  now, 
one  of  the  first  and  plainest  requirements  of  the  law  of 
Moses  was  the  setting  apart  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  to  the 


77 

work  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  provision  for-  their  com- 
plete and  abundant  support  by  a  tax  of  one-te?ith  of  all 
the  income  of  the  nation. 

But  here  in  this  paragraph  a  man  gets  himself  into 
trouble  and  finally  suffers  the  penalty  of  death  for  pub- 
licly teaching  that  '  'priests  ought  not  to  labor  with  their 
hands,  btit  be  supported  by  the  people,''  precisely  the 
thing  that  the  law  of  Moses  absolutely  and  uncondition- 
ally required.  Surely  the  writer  of  the  above  could  not 
have  been  an  ancient  writer,  but  a  modey-n  man  with  a  very 
strong  desire  to  hit  hard  the  modern  custom  of  a  salaried 
ministry. 

In  connection  with  this  same  sinner,  on  page  210, 
we  have  the  word  "priestcraft"  three  times  repeated: 

"Behold  this  is  the  first  time  that  priestcraft  has  been  in- 
troduced among  this  people.  And  behold,  thou  art  not  only 
guilty  of  priestcraft,  but  hast  endeavored  to  enforce  it 
by  the  sword;  and  were  priestcraft  to  be  enforced  among 
this  people,  it  would  prove  their  entire  destruction." 

The  word  ''priest''  is  old,  and  the  word  ''craft" 
and  ''crafty"  is  old;  but  putting  the  two  words  together 
in  the  sense  in  which  It  is  used  here  is  a  conception  of 
modern  times,  growing  out  of  the  corruptions  and  the 
priestly  power  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

On  page  227  we  find  the  expression,  "awful  dilem- 
ma:" 

*  *  *  "That  I  should  find  that  ye  were  not  in  the  awfal 
dilemma  that  our  brethren  were  in  at  Zarahemla." 

And  again  on  the  next  page: 

"I  had  much  desire  that  ye  were  not  in  the  state  of  di- 
lemma like  your  brethren." 

State  of  dilemma  is  not  a  correct  use  of  the  word. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  state  of  dilemma.  But  the 
word  dilemma  is  from  the  Greek  language,  and  has  no 


78 

counterpart,  so   far  as  I  can  find,  in   the  Hebrew  or  the 
Egyptian  language. 

And  still  more  than  this  may  be  said  of  the  word 
"'synagogue''  found  in  several  places.  For  instance,  on 
page  254 : 

"And  Alma  and  Amulelt  went  forth  preaching  repent- 
arce  to  the  people  in  their  temples,  and  in  their  sanotnaries, 
and  also  in  their  synagoo^ues,  which  were  built  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  Jews." 

This  occurred,  according  to  the  chronology  of  the 
book,  about  one  hundred  and  fifteen  years  before  Christ 
visited  this  country  in  person.  And  the  above  state- 
ment shows  that  there  were  at  that  time  three  kinds  of 
buildings  used  for  religious  purposes;  why  they  needed 
so  many  kinds  we  are  not  informed.  First,  "temples;" 
second,  * 'sanctuaries;"  and  third,  "synagogues;"  and 
these  synagogues  were  * 'built  after  the  manner  of  the 
Jews,'' 

Now,  friends,  seriously,  how  did  those  people,  over 
one  hundred  years  before  Christ  visited  them,  find  out 
about  Jewish  synagogues^"  The  word  itself  is  a  Greek 
word,  not  found  in  any  other  ancient  language;  it  is  not  . 
found  in  the  Old  Testament.  Indeed,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  no  such  places  of  worship  were  known  to  the  Old 
Testament  Jews.  While  the  first  temple  was  standing, 
the  Jews  had  only  the  one  sanctuary.  The  Egyptians 
had  only  temples,  which  were  national  and  not  local 
places  of  worship.  No  form  of  religion  on  earth  had 
ever  provided  for  or  required  local  places  of  worship. 
It  was  not  until  after  the  dispersion  of  the  Jews  into  vari- 
ous foreign  countries,  so  remote  from  each  other  as  to 
forbid  a  national  gathering,  that  places  of  worship  were 
built  in  each  separate  city  or  community,  where  the  peo 
pie  could  meet  together  on  the  Sabbath  day  to  read  and 


79 

expound  the  law  and  the  prophets.  And  these  places 
were  called  syna^^og-ues  wherever  the  Greek  la^iguage 
prevailed.    The  word  si m ply  means  a  ' 'place  of  meeimg. ' ' 

But  no  such  places  were  known,  and  no  such  word 
as  synagogue  had  ever  been  heard  by  Nephi  and  his 
people  when  they  left  Jerusalem  and  came  to  this  coun- 
try, six  hundred  years  before  Christ.  And  they  had  no 
communication  with  the  old  world,  and  probably  never 
had  heard  of  such  a  language  as  the  Greek.  Where, 
then,  did  they  get  the  word  synagogue,  and  especially 
where  did  they  get  the  model  upon  which  to  construct 
these  buildings? 

Once  more,  let  me  read  you  a  passage  that,  to  say 
the  least,  is  a  very  odd  one  to  have  been  uttered  nearly 
600  years  before  Christ.  '  On  page  107: 

"And  my  words  shall  hiss  forth  unto  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  for  a  standard  unto  my  people,  which  are  of  the  house 
of  Israel.  And  because  my  words  shall  hiss  forth,  many 
Gentiles  shall  say,  a  bible,  a  bible,  we  have  got  a  bible,  and 
there  cannot  be  any  more  bible.  But  thus  saith  the  Lord 
God;  O  fools,  they  shall  have  a  bible;  and  it  shall  proceed 
forth  from  the  Jews,  mine  ancient  covenant  people.  And 
what  thank  they  the  Jews  for  the  bible  which  they  receive 
from  them?  *  *  *  Thou  fool  that  shall  say  a  bible,  we  have 
got  a  bible,  and  we  need  no  mare  bible.  Have  ye  obtained 
a  bible,  save  it  were  by  the  Jews?  Know  yfs  not  that  there 
are  more  nations  than  one?" 

And  then  the  author  proceeds  in  the  most  approved 
Mormon  style  of  the  present  day  to  argue  the  necessity 
of  a  continued  and  perpetual  revelation,  proving,  if  his 
arguments  prove  anything,  that  there  should  be  a  sepa- 
rate * 'bible"  for  every  separate  nation  on  earth: 

"For  behold  I  shall  speak  unto  the  Jews,  and  they  shall 
write  it;  and  I  shall  also  speak  unto  the  Nephi tes,  and  they 
shall  write  it;  and  I  shall  also  speak  unto  the  other  tribes  of 
the  house  of  Israel,  which  I  have  led  away,  and  they  shall 
write  it;  and  I  shall  also  speak  unto  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  and  they  shall  write  it." 


8o 

Utterly  oblivious,  apparently,  of  the  fact  that  the 
very  terms  he  uses  expose  the  whole  thing  as  a  fraud  ot 
the  first  water. 

The  word  ''Bible,"  as  applied  to  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, was  never  heard  of  or  thought  of  until  centuries 
after  the  Christian  era.  '  ^ Hiera  grammata, '  \s acred  writ- 
ings), was  the  term  used  in  New  Testament  times  to  des- 
ignate the  various  books  that  made  up  the  Word  of  God. 
You,  of  course,  understand  that  the  books  of  the  Bible 
were  written  separately  and  circulated  separately  for 
ages.  It  was  nearly  200  years  after  Christ  before  the 
various  books  of  the  New  Testament  had  been  collected 
and,  in  connection  with  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
put  together  into  one  volume,  to  which  was  given  still 
later  the  name,  ''Ho  Biblos''  the  Greek  word  for  book 
''the Book,''  from  which,  with  an  English  termination, 
we  get  the  word  Bible.  And  yet  this  word  that  had  no 
meaning  whatever  for  at  least  800  years  after  Nephi's 
time,  is  put  into  his  mouth  as  glibly  as  it  would  be  utter- 
ed to-day. 

It  is  said  in  reply,  that  this  is  di prophecy  of  Nephi's; 
he  is  foretelling  what  Gentiles  of  to-day  will  say  about 
the  word  of  God.  This  does  not  meet  the  difficulty. 
All  the  prophecies  of  the  Bible  are  uttered  in  the  current 
language  of  the  day,  in  the  vernacular  of  the  prophet 
who  utters  them.  To  suppose  that  Nephi,  who  uses  the 
reformed  Egyptian,  should  utter  prophecies  in  the 
Greek,  a  language  he  had  never  heard  of,  would  be  sim- 
ply preposterous.  He  would  be  talking  Chocktaw  both 
to  himself  and  to  all  who  listened  to  him,  for  this  occurs 
in  the  midst  of  an  earnest  speech  dehvered  to  his  ''be- 
loved brethren, "  who  are  standing  around  him.  How 
absurdly  ridiculous   for   Nephi  to  stand  up  before  his 


8i 

brethren,  all  of  whom  are  reformed  Egyptian  in  speech, 
and  say  in  his  native  tongue,  *'My  beloved  brethren, 
many  of  the  Gentiles  shall  say,  a  biblos,  a  biblos,  we  have 
got  a  biblos,  and  we  need  no  more  biblosT 

Let  me  mention  one  other  word  several  times  used 
in  the  Book  of  Mormon:  'Hmmortal^'  joined  to  the  word 
soul,  'Hmmortal  soul,''  an  expression  that  is  not  only 
modern  in  its  use,  not  found  in  any  of  the  ancient  lang- 
uages, not  found  in  either  the  Old  or  New  Testament, — 
but  is,  in  fact,  directly  at  variance  with  the  plain  state- 
ments of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  a  popular  expression 
of  modern  invention,  designed  to  express  a  solemn  Bible 
truth,  but  unfortunately  puts  into  the  word  immortal  a 
meaning  that  does  not  belong  to  it.  Immortal  means, 
''not  subject  to  death."  It  is  applied,  in  the  Bible,  to 
the  body  after  the  resurrection-,  but  not  applied  to  the 
soul  here  in  this  life,  because  the  Bible  expressly 
represents  the  soul  of  the  sinner  as  already  dead  *'in 
trespasses  and  in  sins."  It  has  no  life,  real  true  life, 
until  it  has  been  regenerated  by  the  Spirit  of  God  and 
made  alive  in  Christ.  Hence  the  word  immortal  is  not 
a  proper  word  to  describe  the  soul  here,  for  instead  of 
being  *^not  subject  to  death,"  it  is  already  dead.  The 
popular  meaning  of  the  word  is  that  the  soul  shall  never 
cease  to  exist,  which  is  true;  but  the  word  immortal  is 
not  the  right  word  to  express  that  truth. 

The  use,  then,  of  this  word  alone,  as  applied  to  the 
soul,  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  would  be  an  indisputable 
proof  that  the  book  is  modern  in  its  conception  and 
make-up,  and  could  not  be  from  God,  for  God  cannot 
contradict  himself  He  could  not  possibly  be  beguiled 
into  the  use  of  a  word  that  would  contradict  the  express 
teachings  of  the  Bible. 


82 

There  are  many  other  words  whose  existence  in  the 
Book  of  Mormon  proves  its  modern  origin;  as,  the 
word  ''barges,'"  the  name  given  to  Jared's  vessels,  or 
arks,  nearly  2500  years  before  Christ.  It  is  from  the 
Danish  Bargie. 

The  word  *'Jew"  or  ''J^ws,"  used  on  almost  every 
page  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  a  nickname  given  to  the 
scattered  remnants-  of  God's  ancient  people  long  after 
the  Christian  era,  very  improperly  found  in  our  English 
version  of  the  New  Testament,  but  not  in  the  original 
Greek.  In  every  instance  the  Greek  says,  loudaioi 
C'Judeans,"  or  inhabitants  of  Judea). 

^^ Gentiles ^"^^  from  the  Latin  GentiliSy  a  word  abso- 
lutely without  meaning  to  the  Nephites  and  Lamanites 
in  this  country,  who  were  all  descendants  of  one  family, 
the  tribe  of  Manassah, 

''Baptize,"  from  the  Greek,  but  used  in  this  country 
150  years  before  Christ  as  we  use  it  to-day  in  the  Eng- 
lish to  describe  the  Christian  ordinance. 

So  the  word  "church,"  a  modern  word,  from  the 
Danish  "kirke,"  or  the  German  "kirche,"  put  into  the 
New  Testament  as  the  translation  of  the  Greek  word 
ekklasia  (an  assembly),  but  used  in  this  country  150 
years  before  Christ's  time. 

There  are  many  words  and  phrases,  usually  called 

slang  phrases,  that  are  well  known  to  be  modern,  and 

only  modern,  in  their  use,  such  as  the  word  "hinder- 

ment,"  on  page  250: 

"And  he  became  a  great  hinderment  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  church." 

The  phrase  "make  game,"  on  page  491: 

*'Yea,  ye  need  not  any  longer  hiss,  nor  spurn,  nor  make 
game  of  the  Jews,  nor  any  of  the  remnant  of  the  house  of 
Israel." 


83 

A  slang  phrase  that  is  not  only  modern  in  its  origin, 
but  if  I  mistake  not,  originated  in  our  own  country.* 

But  why  need  I  specify  words,  single  words,  when 
there  are  sentences  by  the  thousand,  and  whole  chapters, 
whose  very  presence  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  in  the 
form  in  which  they  are  found,  setdes  the  question  of  the 
modern  origin  of  the  book  beyond  the  possibility  of 
question.  I  refer  to  all  the  quotations  from  the  Bible,  em- 
bracing, as  I  have  already  shown  you,  so  large  a  part  of 
the  book.  They  are  every  one  of  them,  with  scarcely 
an  exception,  fnade  verbatim  from  our  moderii  English 
version,  the  King  James'  version  of  the  Bible,  made  a  little 
over  200  years  ago. 

You  have  all  known  this  fact,  of  course,  ever  since 
you  first  knew  the  Book  of  Mormon.  But  I  am  con- 
vinced you  have  never  carefully  considered  what  that  fact 
means,  or  you  must  have  rejected  it  at  once  as  a  fraud. 
I  need  only  repeat  to  you  the  manner  of  preparing  the 
Book  of  Mormon  as  related  by  the  eye  witnesses. 

David  Whitmer  states  as  follows: 

"The  tablets,  or  plates  were  translated  by  Smith,  who 
used  a  small  ovnl,  or  kidney-shaped  stone,  called  Urim  and 
Thummim,  that  seemed  endowed  with  the  marvelous  power 
of  converting  the  characters  on  the  plates,  when  used  by 
Smith,  into  English,  who  would  then  dictate  to  Cowdry 
what  to  write.    Frequently  one  character  would  make  two 

*Tt  has  been  replied  to  the  arg^ume  it  from  tlie  use  of  all  these  modern 
words  that  "the  ang^el  '.\'ho  translated  those  ancient  plates  for  Joseph  Smith 
would  be  apt  to  use  words  with  which  Joseph  Smith  was  familiar:  he  would 
clothe  the  ancient  thoug-ht  in  a  modern  dress,  and  use  such  simple  modern  ex- 
pressions as  Joseph  Smith,  who  was  an  unlettered  man,  could  readily  under- 
stand." 

To  this  it  is  sufRcient  to  reply  that  while  this  supposition,  if  true,  mig^ht 
account  for  the  existence  of  some  of  the  words  already  mentioned  in  the  Book 
of  Mormon,  such  as  "Jew,"  "baptism,"  "church,"  "popular,"  etc.,  words  that 
may  have  had  some  counterpart  in  the  ancient  lanstuag-e  in  which  those  plates 
were  written,  it  could  by  no  pof-sibility  be  made  to  account  for  the  existence  in 
the  Rook  of  Mormon  of  such  words  as  "faculties,"  "synag-og-ue,"  "Gentiles,*' 
"Bible,"  "immortal  soul,"  "make  game,"  and  other  words  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  vo  cotwterpart  in  any  ancient  language  with  which  the  Nephites 
had  any  knowledge. 


84 

lines  of  manuscript,  while  others  made  bnt  a  word  or  two 
words." —  *'Myth  of  the  Manuscript  Found,"  page  83. 

Martin  Harris  explains  the  translation  as  follows: 

"By  the  aid  of  the  seer  stone,  sentences  would  appear 
and  were  read  by  the  prophet  and  written  by  Martin,  and 
when  finished  he  would  say,  'Written/  and  if  correctly  writ- 
ten, that  sentence  would  disappear  and  another  ai)pear  in  its 
place;  but  if  not  written  correctly  it  remained  until  corrected, 
so  that  the  translation  was  just  as  it  was  engraven  on  the 
plates,  precisely  in  the  language  then  used." — Myth  of  the  M. 
F.,  page  91. 

These  two  witnesses,  you  observe,  exactly  agree  as 
to  the  modus  operandi.  Joseph  vSmith  has  one  of  the 
plates  before  him,  and  places  this  oval-shaped  stone  di- 
rectly over  one  of  the  characters  upon  the  plate;  and 
the  stone  is  endoweci  with  the  marvelous  power  of  trans- 
lating that  character  into  the  Enghsh  language,  so  that 
Joseph  Smith  is  permitted  to  read  the  English  word  or 
sentence  as  it  appears  on  the  top  of  the  stone.  You  see 
the  Egypdan  character  is  underneath,  and  its  English 
equivalent  appears  on  top  of  the  stone,  so  that  there  can 
be  no  posssible  chance  of  mistake.  Mr.  Smith  has  simply  to 
read  the  sentence  as  it  appears  on  top  of  the  stone,  and  Mr. 
Cowdry,  seated  at  a  short  distance  from  Mr.  Smith,  with 
a  blanket  hung  up  between  them,  copies  or  writes  each 
sentence  as  it  falls  from  Mr.  Smith's  lips.  And  to  pre- 
vent the  possibility  of  mistake,  the  sentence  or  word  re- 
mains on  the  stone  infullviezv  of  Mr.  Smith  until  Mr. 
Cowdry  has  had  thne  to  zvrite  it  out  in  full.  And  if  Mr. 
Cowdry  for  any  reason  misunderstands  Mr.  Smith,  and 
thus  makes  a  mistake,  the  sentence  will  not  dozvn,  it  still 
persists  in  remaining  there  until  the  mistake  has  been 
corrected.  Neither  Mr.  Smith  nor  Mr.  Cowdry  have 
any  responsibility  in  the  matter,  except,  simply,  the  one 
to  announce   and  the  other  to  write  down  whatever  ap- 


85 

pears  on  the  top  of  the  stone.  If  the  sentences  are  awk- 
wardly expressed,  or  grammatically  incorrect,  or  con- 
tain useless  verbiage,  unnecessary  repetitions,  or  have 
errors  of  doctrine,  or  blunders  of  any  kind,  it  is  not  at 
all  the  fault  of  Mr.  Smith  or  Mr.  Cowdry;  it  must  be 
charged  to  the  stone,  or  the  angel  that  works  it,  or  to 
the  original  writing  underneath  the  stone.  These  earn- 
est men  have  only  to  announce  and  write  down  what 
the  stone  records. 

And  whether  the  sentence  that  appears  on  the  top 
of  the  stone  is  really  a  translation  of  the  characters  un- 
der the  stone,  they  have  no  possible  means  of  knowing. 
Both  are  uneducated  men  and  know  nothing  whatever 
of  the  Egyptian  characters  they  are  translating.  All  they 
know  about  it,  and  all  they  claim  to  know  about  it,  is 
that  an  angel,  or  some  celestial  personage  that  looked 
like  an  angel,  as  they  supposed,  appeared  to  them  and 
told  them  that  the  words  on  top  of  the  stone  were  a 
translation  true  and  faithful  of  the  characters  underneath. 

It  is  claimed  there  are  <f/«fz/^;z  witnesses  to  the  cred- 
ibility of  the  Book  of  Mormon.  But  it  can  be  readily 
seen  that  not  one  of  them  is,  or  can  be  a  credible  wit- 
ness. They  saw  the  plates,  some  plates,  and  describe 
their  size,  general  appearance,  etc.  But  every  witness 
fails,  just  at  the  point  where  an  anxious  world  want 
information,  that  is  whether  those  plates  contain  an  in- 
congruous lot  of  characters  that  represented  nothing 
whatever,  or  were  a  genuine  record;  and  if  a  genuine 
record,  whether  they  contained  the  whole  or  any  part  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon.  In  other  words,  whether  Joseph 
Smith  was  honest  or  playing  upon  their  credulity  they 
had  no  possible  means  of  knowing,  farther  than  the 
statement  of  this  redoubtable  angel. 


86 

And  now,  friends,  on  the  supposition  that  Joseph 
Smith  was  an  honest,  earnest  man,  I  propose,  by  four 
plain  and  simple  facts,  to  show  you  positively  and  con- 
clusively that  this  angel  was  a  fraud.  That  when  he 
told  Joseph  Smith  that  the  words  which  appeared  to 
him  on  the  top  of  that  stone  were  a  translation  true  and 
faithful  of  the  characters  on  the  plates  underneath  the 
stone,  he  told  a  lie. 

I.  As  they  proceed  with  their  work  of  translating, 
the  stone  is  placed  upon  a  character,  and  behold,  there 
appears  on  the  top  of  the  stone  a  passage  from  our  Bible; 
and  it  is  in  the  language  of  our  King  James'  version, 
precisely  as  it  was  translated  by  the  EngHsh  bishops  200 
years  ago. 

Now,  that  sentence  on  top  of  the  stone  is  either  a 
translation  of  the  characters  under  the  stone,  or  it  is  not. 
If  it  is  a  translation  made  under  the  authority  and  by 
the  direction  of  an  angel  of  God,  then  we  are  confront- 
ed with  this  wonderful  phenomenon,  that  the  angel  should 
translate  exactly  as  those  English  bishops ^  not  varying 
in  a  single  word,  although  there  are  several  thousand 
whole  verses  of  this  character,  thus  stamping,  as  you 
see,  with  heaven's  seal  the  work  of  those  grand  old 
bishops,  proving  that  they  were  infallible,  absolutely  so, 
never  having  made  a  single  mistake,  the  angel  agreeing 
with  them  in  every  instance,  even  to  the  wording  of  their 
thoughts.* 

♦And  the  wonder  will  only  be  increased  when  we  learn  that  all  the  quo- 
tations from  the  Old  Testament  made  orior  to  the  appearance  of  Christ  heie 
upon  this  continent — that  is,  all  the  direct  Bible  quotations  found  in  the  book 
from  the  first  to  the  450th  pagfe — are  translated  from  orig-inal  brass  plates  en- 
^rax'ed  in  the  pure  Egyptian  lanoruage\  plates  broujj^ht  by  Nephi  from  the  city 
of  Jerusalem  600  years  before  Christ, 

Just  think  of  it!  Those  bishops,  200  years  ago,  translated  from  a  He- 
brew text  that  has  been  handed  down  to  us  from  g-eneration  to  g^eneration, 
copied  and  recopied  a  thousand  times  over,  perhaps;  and  their  translation 
from  such  a  Hebrew  text  is  found  to  accord  exactly,  even  to  the  minutest  par- 
ticular, with  a  translation  made  by  an  ang^el  direct  from  Eg-yiJtian  plates  2600 
years  old;  less  one  sing^Ie  transcription,  and  that  made  by  the  inspired  prophet 
Mormon  —See  pages  10,  11,  63  and  154. 


87 

But  the  scholarship  of  the  world  has  over  and  over 
again  declared  that  those  men  were  7iot  mfallible;  that  they 
did  make  a  large  number  of  mistakes;  no  very  serious 
ones  it  is  true,  nothing  that  changes  any  great  doctrine 
of  the  Bible;  but,  nevertheless,  faults  enough  to  keep 
them  humble,  and  show  that  they  were  only  human. 
And  if  I  mistake  not,  our  Mormon  friends,  in  their  Ar- 
ticles of  Faith,  say,  *'We  believe  the  Bible  to  be  the  word 
of  God,  as  far  as  it  is  translated  correctly y^^  intimating 
that  it  was  not  altogether  translated  correctly;  whereas, 
the  testimony  of  this  stone  and  the  angel  is  that  the 
translation  is  absolutely  perfect,  without  fault 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  that  passage  appearing  on  the 
top  of  the  stone  is  not  a  translation  of  the  characters 
underneath  the  stone,  but  is  simply  quoted  word  for 
word  from  our  Bible,  then  the  whole  claim  is  prevent  false. 
For  if  in  one  ijistaiice  the  sentence  appearing  on  top  of 
the  stone  does  not  represent  perfectly  and  exactly  the 
characters  underneath — is  not  a  bonfide  translation,  then 
the  same  thing  might  occur  in  a  thousand  instances;  in 
fact,  in  every  instance,  so  that  the  characters  under- 
neath the  stone  need  have  no  connection  whatever  with 
the  words  that  appear  on  top.  In  other  words,  if  Joseph 
Smith,  in  several  thousand  instances,  went  outside  of  the 
plates  underneath  his  stone  for  his  sentences,  went  di- 
rectly to  our  Bible  and  quoted  from  it,  what  proof  have 
we  that  he  did  not  go  outside  of  the  plates  for  every  other 
sente7ice  found  in  the  Book  of  Mormon? 

2,  The  second  fact  I  wish  to  present  in  proof  of  the 
deception  practiced  by  the  angel  is  this:  According 
to  the  testimony  of  the  eye-witnesses,  there  were  only 
plates  enough  to  lurnish  about  one  eighth  or  one  tenth  of 
the  contents  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  upon  the  most  liberal 
estimate  possible. 


88 

Mr.  Martin  Harris  describes  the  size  of  the  plates. 
— See  Myth  of  M.  F.,  page  89: 

"He  pointed  with  one  of  the  fingers  of  his  left  hand  to 
the  back  of  his  right  hand  and  said,  *I  should  think  they 
were  about  so  long,'  or  about  eight  inches." 

The  plates  were,  then,  about  eight  inches  long.  Mr. 
Harris  does  not  give  their  width, but  they  are  understood 
to  have  been  about  seven  inches  wide. 

The  specimen  of  Egyptian  words  shown  on  page 
71  will  sufficiently  illustrate  a  well  known  fact,  that  both 
the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  and  their  written  words  are, 
many  of  them,  the  large  majority  of  them,  large  sprawl- 
ing characters  that  occupy  a  great  deal  of  space  on  a 
page.  I  suppose  it  would  hardly  be  possible  to  get  as 
much  matter  on  a  page  of  Egyptian  characters  as  you 
could  get  on  a  page  of  ordinary  hand  writmp^.  As  com- 
pared with  fine  printed  matter,  such  as  is  found  in  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  it  would  probably  require  not  less 
than  four  or  five  such  plates  to  make  one  page  of  closely 
printed  matter.   . 

But  I  remember  those  characters  were  not  all  Egypt- 
ian; the  specimens  copied  for  the  examination  of  the 
outside  world  are  said  to  be  made  up,  in  part,  of  Hebrew 
and  Arabic  characters,  both  of  which  are  able  to  be  writ- 
ten in  a  much  smaller  compass  than  the  Egyptian.  As 
printed  from  type,  the  Hebrew  is  capable  of  being  com- 
pressed into  nearly  as  small  a  compass  as  a  printed  page 
of  English.  Of  course,  when  written  by  hand  or  en- 
graven upon  plates,  it  could  hardly  be  put  into  so  small 
a  compass. 

But  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  we  will  suppose 
one  page  of  the  plates  could  furnish  material  for  a  full 
page  of  closely  set,  small  type,  such  as  the  Book  of  Mor- 


89 

mon.  There  are  563  pages  in  the  Book  of  Mormon, 
which  would  therefore  require  563  plates;  probably,  1500 
would  be  far  nearer  the  truth. 

Let  us  now  see  if  we  can  ascertain  anything  near  the 
probable  number  of  plates  used.  Mr.  Harris  is  quoted 
as  saying  (See  Myth  of  M.  F.,  page  89.): 

"He  pointed  with  one  of  the  fiagers  of  his  left  hand  to 
the  back  of  his  right  hand  and  said,  *I  should  think  they 
were  so  long,'  or  about  eight  incbes,  *and  about  so  thick,* 
or  about  four  inches;  *and  each  of  the  plates  was  thick- 
er than  the  thickest  tin.'  " 

This  informs  us  that  when  these  plates  were  laid  to- 
gether in  a  pile,  they  made  a  pile  about  four  inches  thick; 
and  that  each  plate  was  thicker  thaji  the  thickest  tiji,  I 
called  at  a  hardware  store  the  other  day,  and  witb 
the  help  of  a  clerk,  measured  the  thickness  of  some  tin, 
not  the  thickest,  but  aUttle  more  than  medium  thickness; 
and  we  found  it  required  sixty  plates  of  this  tin  to  viake 
one  inch.  But  Mr.  Harris  says  these  plates  were  thicker 
than  the  thickest  tin.  (They  would  need  to  be  thus  thick 
to  form  a  sufficient  body  for  the  work  of  the  engraver.) 
It  would  then  be  a  very  liberal  estimate  to  suppose  there 
wereyf/?)/  of  these  plates  to  the  inch,  or  a  total  0(200  plates 
in  the  pile  of  four  inches — that  is,  plates  enough  to 
furnish  material  for  200  pages  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

But  here  is  a  witness  who  lets  in  a  little  more  light. 

I  read  from  Myth  of  M.  F.,  page  82: 

"The  plates  which  Mr.  Whitmer  saw  were  in  the  shape 
of  a  tablet,  fastened  with  three  riags,  about  one-third  of  which 
appeared  to  be  loose  in  plates,  the  other  solid,  but  with  per- 
ceptible marks  where  the  plates  seemed  to  be  sealed,  and  the 
guide  that  pointed  it  out  to  Smith  very  impressively  remind- 
ed him  that  the  loose  plates  alone  were  to  be  ussd,  the 
sealed  portion  was  not  to  be  tampered  with." 

Several  other  testimonies  are  to  the  same  effect. 
Mr.  Harris,  for  instance,  says  (Ibid,  page  88): 


90 

**And  as  many  of  the  plates  as  Joseph  Smith  translated, 
I  handled  with  my  hands,  plate  after  plate." 

Instead,  then,  of  having  all  the  plates  which  together 
mdike  a  pile/otir  inc/ies  thick,  there  were  actually  used  only 
about  ^/z<?-M2>^  of  the  plates ;  the  balance,  or  two-thirds, 
remained  sealed  up  for  future  use.  One-third  of  200 
plates  would  be  sixty-six  or  sixty-seven  plates;  the  total 
number,  therefore,  from  which  a  book  of  563  pages  of 
closely  printed  matter  was  derived.  Sixty-seven,  in- 
stead of  563  plates,  which  is  the  lowest  possible  estimate, 
while  1500  is  the  more  probable  one. 

J.  But  there  is  still  a  third  statement  in  proof  that 
the  contents  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  did  not  come  from 
the  plates.  It  is  the  statement  of  Mr.  David  Whitmer  al- 
ready read  that  **frequently  one  character  would  make 
two  lines  of  manuscript,  while  others  made  but  a  word 
or  two  words. 

We  can  readily  believe  this  statement.  A  man  who 
could  read  several  thousand  verses  from  the  King  James' 
version  of  the  Bible  out  of  the  characters  on  those 
plates,  could  easily  read  two  lines  of  manuscript,  or  a 
dozen  lines,  if  desired,  from  one  character.  But  the 
above  is  an  exceedingly  unfortunate  admission.  It  is 
true,  as  I  tried  to  illustrate  in  the  second  lecture,  that 
the  Hebrew  characters  are  often  very  expressive  and 
comprehensive,  frequently  requiring  two  and  three  and 
possibly  four  words  in  our  language  to  correctly  translate 
one  Hebrew  character.  But  a  man  who  has  ever  trans- 
lated from  any  of  the  ancient  languages  would  smile  with 
credulity  if  you  should  tell  him  that  'frequently  one 
character  would  make  two  lines  of  manuscript,"  unless, 
indeed,  the  lines  were  very  short,  or  the  words  wonder- 
fully drawn  out,  so  that  three  or  four  words  at  the  most 
could  occupy  two  full  lines.     It  was  simply  impossible, 


91 

friends,  that  one  character  could  ever  make  two  full  lines 
of  ordinary  manuscript. 

4.  One  other  fact  and  I  will  close  this  examination 
for  the  present. 

Let  me  read  you  again  from  the  testimony  of  Mar- 
tin Harris: 

*'Marfcin  Harris  related  an  incident  that  occurred  daring 
the  time  that  tie  wrote  that  portion  of  the  translation  of  the 
Book  of  Mormon,  which  he  was  favored  to  write  direct  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Prophet  Joseph  Smith.  He  said  that  the 
Prophet  possessed  a  seer  stone,  by  which  he  was  enabled  to 
translate  as  well  as  from  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  and  for 
convenience  he  then  used  the  seer  stone." — Myth  of  the  M.  F., 
page  91. 

It  seems  almost  too  bad  that  he  should  thus  inad- 
vertantly give  the  whole  thing  away.  For  you  must  un- 
derstand that  the  Urim  and  Thummim  spoken  of,  and 
called  throughout  the  Book  of  Mormon  **the  Interpre- 
ters/' had  been  provided  with  great  care  over  2500 
year  ago  by  God  himself,  for  the  express  purpose  of 
translating  these  plates.  They  are  often  mentioned  in 
the  Book  of  Mormon  as  exceedingly  important.  They 
were  preserved  with  the  greatest  care,  handed  down 
from  one  generation  to  another  with  the  plates,  and  bur- 
ied with  them  in  the  hill  Cumorah  over  1400  years  ago; 
as  sacred  as  the  plates  themselves.  So  sacred  that  only 
one  man  was  allowed  to  handle  or  use  them,  the  highly 
favored  prophet,  Joseph  Smith,  himself  But  now,  alas! 
after  all  this  trouble  and  pains  and  care  on  the  part  of 
God,  and  on  the  part  of  so  many  holy  men  of  old,  this 
'*Urim  and  Thummim*'  is  found  at  last  to  be  altogether 
superflous;  7iot  needed  at  alL  Martin  Harris  tells  us  that 
the  Prophet  Joseph  Smith  possessed  a  ''seer  stone,''  a 
sort  of  ''peep  stone,''  by  which  he  was  enabled  to  trans- 
late as  well  2.^  from  the  Urim  and  Thummim;  and,   "for 


92 

convenience y  he  used  the  seer  stone. "  So  we  are  left  to 
infer  that  when  he  used  the  Urim  and  Thummim  at  all, 
it  was  at  some  inconvenience.  And  he  probably  only  did 
it  out  of  regard  to  the  feelings  of  his  God,  who  had  spent 
so  much  time  and  anxiety  in  preparing  it  so  long  ago, 
and  preserving  it  to  the  present  day  for  his  special  use. 

(The  closing  sentences  of  this  lecture  were  left  out 
after  it  had  been  decided  to  publish  a  fourth  lecture.) 


LlECTURE   1Y. 


(This  lecture,  in  substance,  was  delivered  by  special  re- 
quest at  the  Walker  Opera  House,  Sabbath  Evening,  July  26.) 


"For  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are 
your  ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord. 

"For  as  the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my 
ways  higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your 
thoughts."-  Isaiah,  55:  8,  9. 

/.  A  few  of  the  mistakes  of  the  Book  of  Mormon : 

a.  Some  of  the  types  presented  in  the  Book  of  Mor- 
mon contradict  the  plain  teachings  of  the  Bible. 

For  instance,  the  Bible  type  for  the  word  of  God 
itself  is  water,  pure  living  water.  It  is  used  thus,  prob- 
ably, in  a  hundred  places.  So  complete  is  the  type, 
that  we  are  able  to  trace  its  likeness  through  nearly  all 
the  various  uses  of  water. 

Water  is  used  for  cleansing  purposes^  so  the  word 
of  God. — See  Psalms,  119:  9;  2nd  Cor.,  7:  i;  ist  Peter, 
i:  22;  John,  17:  17,  and  15:  3;  Eph.,  5:  26,  27,  and 
others. 

Water  is  used  for  quenching  thirsty  so  the  word  of 
God. — See  Isaiah,  55:  i;  John,  7:  37,  and  4:  10,  14,  and 
6:  35;  Rev.,  21:  6,  and  22:  17,  and  others. 

Water  is  used  for  reviving  nature^  so  the  word  of 
God. — See  Isaiah,  55:  10,  11;  Ezk.,  47:  1-12;  Psalms, 
i:  2,  3;  ist  Cor.,  3:  6,  compared  with  Acts,  18:  24,  28. 


94 

Now  please  bear  in  mind,  friends,  that  God  never 
uses  a  word  by  chance,  never  puts  a  word  in  simply  to 
fill  up,  or  round  out  a  sentence  as  we  often  do.  Every 
type  chosen  is  carefully  and  wisely  chosen.  And  God 
never  mixes  things,  never  confuses  by  using  a  typical 
word  in  a  variety  of  senses,  making  it  mean  one  thing  in 
one  passage  and  another  thing  in  another  passage.  If 
pure  living  water  is  found  to  be  a  type  of  the  word  of 
God  in  one  passage,  then  we  have  found  a  key  that  will 
unlock  every  passage  where  pure  living  water  is  used  in 
a  typical  sense.  It  alwi^ys  means  the  word  of  God,  never 
anything  else. 

But  on  page  20,  Nephi,  3:  17,  we  have  this  state- 
ment: 

*'And  it  came  to  pass  that  I  beheld  that  the  rod  of  iron 
which  my  father  had  seen,  was  the  word  of  God,  which  led 
to  the  fountain  of  living  waters,  ur  to  the  tree  of  life;  which 
waters  are  a  representation  of  the  love  of  (^od;  and  I  also  be- 
held that  the  tree  of  life  was  a  representation  of  the  love  of 
God." 

At  least  three  errors  in  this  one  sentence.  /.  He 
makes  a  rod  of  iron  a  type  of  the  word  of  God,  and  re- 
peats the  same  statement  on  page  31.  2.  He  makes 
living  water  a  type  of  the  love  of  God,  and  then:  j.  Im- 
mediately mixes  types  by  saying  that  the  tree  of  life  rep- 
resents the  love  of  God. 

But  upon  page  32,  he  changes  his  mind  as  to  the 
meaning  of  water: 

**And  they  said  nnto  me,  what  meaneth  the  river  of  water 
which  our  father  saw  ?  And  I  said  unto  them  that  the  water 
which  my  father  saw  was  filthiness:  and  so  much  was  his 
mind  swallowed  up  in  other  things  that  be  beheld  not  the 
filthiness  of  the  water." 

Think  of  it!  A  man  inspired  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  helped  constantly  by  an  angel  of  God  having  his 


95 

mind  so  much  "swallowed  up  in  other  things'*  that  he 
entirely  mistakes  the  character  of  the  water  which  he 
saw;  and  it  is  left  for  this  young  son  of  his,  inspired  by 
the  same  spirit  and  helped  by  the  same  angel,  to  correct 
his  father^  s  mistake. 

But  the  young  man,  Nephi,  has  a  very  fruitful 
mind.  After  telling  us  that  the  river  of  water  meant 
fiithiness,  immediately  concludes  he  has  not  yet  exhaust- 
ed his  subject  and  therefore  adds: 

"And  I  said  unto  them,  that  it,  (this  river  of  water),  was 
an  awful  giilf  which  separated  the  wicked  from  th«  tree  of 
life,  and  also  from  the  saints  of  God." 

Now,  friends,  to  the  careful  student  of  the  Bible, 
who  learns  how  exceedingly  careful  its  statements,  how 
wisely  chosen,  and  then  how  uniformly  adhered  to  from 
Genesis  to  Revelations,  are  its  types  and  symbols^  this 
one  instance  of  mixture  and  change  and  uncertainty  is 
sufficient  to  brand  the  book  as  a  fraud,  when  it  pretends 
to  have  come  from  the  all  wise  and  unchangeable  God. 

b.  The  Bible  tells  us  plainly  and  positively  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  as  a  person,  the  third  person  in  the  God- 
head, was  not  given  to  the  world  until  Jesus  himself  had 
come  in  the  flesh  and  accomplished  his  mission.  The 
Holy  Spirit  is  sometimes  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. His  work  in  the  creation  of  the  world  is  alluded 
to  in  the  very  first  chapter  of  Genesis;  his  work  in  in- 
spiring the  Old  Testament  scriptures  is  positively  stated 
in  2nd  Peter,  i:  21.  But  his  work  was  not  understood 
by  the  Old  Testament  saints.  As  Jesus  was  actively  at 
work  all  through  the  Old  Testament  history,  was  in  fact 
the  Jehovah,  the  Lord  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  was 
not  known  as  a  separate  and  distinct  personality,  not 
revealed  as  the  only  begotten  son,  till  he  came  here  in 


9^ 

the  flesh;  so  the  Holy  Spirit,  though  actively  at  work, 
was  not  known  as  a  separate  person,  his  real  office  and 
work  were  not  understood,  until  the  dispensation  of  the 
spirit  was  ushered  in  on  the  day  of  Pentacost,  and  he 
was  revealed  in  his  fullness  of  blessing.  In  fact,  the 
third  person  could  not  be  revealed  to  men  before  the  seco7id 
person,  the  Lord  Jesus,  had  been  manifested.  Upon  this 
point,  the  statements  of  the  New  Testament  are  very 
plain  and  positive: 

"But  this  spake  he  of  the  spirit,  which  they  that  believe 
on  him  should  receive:  for  the  Holy  Ghost  was  not  yet  given; 
because  that  Jesus  was  not  yet  glorified."— JohD,  7:  39. 

A  very  positive  statement  that  the  **Holy  Ghost  was 
not  yet  given,"  and  the  reason  stated,  * 'because  that 
Jesus  was  not  yet  glorified."  Peter,  on  the  day  of  Pen- 
tacost, says  expressly: 

"Therefore,  being  by  the  right  hand  of  God  exalted,  and 
having  received  of  the  Father  the  promise  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
he  hath  shed  forth  this  which  ye  now  see  and  hear,"— Acts, 
2:  33;  see  verses  16  and  18. 

Equally  conclusive  are  the  words  of  the  Savior: 

"Nevertheless  I  tell  you  the  truth;  it  is  expedient  for 
you  that  I  go  away;  for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will 
not  come  unto  you;  but  if  I  depart,  I  will  send  him  unto 
you."— John,  16:  7;  see  also  John,  14: 16,  26;  and  15:  26;  and 
16:  13. 

Well  now,  in  the  face  of  these  positive  statements 
of  the  New  Testament,  hear  what  Nephi  says  nearly  6oo 
years  before  Christ.  After  telHng  his  people,  in  pro- 
phecy, of  the  baptism  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost  descending  upon  him  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  he 
adds,  (Pages  no,  in;  2nd  Nephi,  13:  2-5.): 

"And  also  the  voice  of  the  son  came  unto  me  saying,  he 
that  is  baptized  in  my  name,  to  him  will  the  Father  give  the 
Holy  Ghost,  like  unto  me. 


97 

*  *  *  "Yea,  by  following  your  Lord  and  Savior  down 
into  the  water,  according  to  his  word,  behold  then  shall  ye  re- 
ceive the  Holy  Ghost;  yea,  then  cometh  the  baptism  of  fire 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  then  can  ye  speak  with  the 
tongue  of  angels,  and  shout  praises  unto  the  Holy  One  of 
Israel. 

*  *  *  "Yea,  ye  have  entered  in  by  the  gate :  ye  have 
done  according  to  the  commandments  of  the  Father  and  the 
Son;  and  ye  have  received  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  witnesseth 
of  the  Father  and  the  Son." 

And  such  statements  are  over  and  over  again  re- 
peated all  through  the  book,  with  all  the  accompanying 
extraordinary  gifts  that  followed  the  day  of  Pentacost, 
and  many  more: 

"Yeaj  having  been  favoured  above  every  other  nation, 
kindred,  tongue  and  people;  having  been  visited  by  the  spirit 
of  God;  having  conversed  with  angels,  and  having  been  spok- 
en unto  by  the  voice  of  the  Lord;  and  having  the  spirit  of  pro- 
phecy, and  the  spirit  of  revelation  and  also  many  gifts:  the 
gift  of  speaking  with  tongues,  and  the  gift  of  preaching,  and 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  the  gift  of  translation,  etc. — 
Page234;  Alma,  7:2. 

In  his  desire  to  *^  beat  the  Bible,'*  and  exalt  his 
pet  Nephites  to  Heaven  with  privileges  that  no  other 
people  on  earth  possessed,  our  author  should  have  been 
careful,  and  not  so  flatly  contradict  the  plain  statements 
of  the  New  Testament,  which  he  professes  to  receive 
with  all  reverence  as  the  word  of  God. 

c.  King  Jacob  tells  us  on  page  120,  that  a  **  hun- 
dredth part  of  the  proceedings  of  this  people,  which  now 
began  to  be  numerous,  cannot  be  written  upon  these 
plates;  but  many  of  their  proceedings  are  written  upon 
the  larger  plates,  and  their  wars  and  their  contentions 
and  the  reigns  of  their  kings." 

Fifty-five  years  before  this  statement,  Jacob's  father, 
Lehi,  left  Jerusalem  with  his  wife  and  four  boys,  all 
unmarried.     Another  family,  consisting  of  Ishmael  and 


98 

wife,  two  sons  and  several  daughters,  were  induced  to 
accompany  them.  One  other  man,  Zerum,  who  had 
been  a  slave  of  Laban,  made  up  the  total  outfit. 

During  the  first  ten  years,  those  four  boys  and  the 
slave  appear  to  have  married  those  girls,  while 
two  other  boys,  Jacob  and  Joseph,  are  added  to  the 
original  family  of  Lehi*  If  during  the  next  ten  years 
each  of  the  five  young  families  multiply  as  rapidly 
as  possible,  we  cannot  count  more  than  from  30 
to  40  young  children,  and  during  the  next  ten  years  the 
third  decade,  the  largest  possible  increase  would  not 
reach  50  more  children.  So  that  at  the  end  oi  thirty 
years  we  have  twelve  grown  people  and  from  75  to  90 
children — of  whom  there  are  possibly  from  10  to  15  who 
have  reached  the  age  of  20  years,  and  may  possibly iiave 
intermarried. 

And  friends,  it  was  during  this  last  decade,  between 
twenty  and  thirty  years  after  leaving  Jerusalem,  pro- 
bably about  twenty-two  or  twenty-three  years  after, 
when  there  was  a  possible  population  of  between  50  and 
60  persons,  nearly  all  of  whom  are  small  children,  that 
this  company  divide  into  two  nations.  The  two  oldest 
brothers,  Laman  and  Lemuel,  with  their  families,  and  the 
two  sons  of  Ishmael,  under  the  general  designation  of 
LamaniteSy  remain  in  South  America,  and  elect  a  king  ! 
while  the  balance,  under  the  direction  of  Nephi,  at  the 
command  of  God,  strike  off  into  the  wilderness  in  the 
direction  of  North  America,  choose  Nephi  as  their 
king,  and  assume  the  name  of  Nephites! — and  before 
the  first  thirty  years  have  expired,  that  is  in  about  seven 
or  eight  years,  this  little  colony  have  subdued  the  forests, 
become  wealthy  in  flocks  and  herds,  been  taught  by 
Nephi  to 


99 

"Build  buildings;  and  to  work  in  all  manner  of  wood, 
and  of  iron,  and  of  copper,  and  of  brass,  and  of  steel  (?),and 
of  grold  and  of  silver,  and  of  precious  ores,  which  were  in 
great  abundance." 

And  in  addition  to  all  this,  he  had  built  and  com- 
pleted a  temple: 

"And  I  did  construct  it  after  the  manner  of  the  temple 
of  Solomon,  save  it  were  not  built  of  so  many  precious  things; 
for  they  were  not  to  be  found  upon  the  land*;  wherefore,  it 
could  not  be  built  like  unto  Solomon's  temple.  But  the 
manner  of  the  construction  was  like  unto  the  temple  of 
Solomon;  and  the  workmanship  thereof  was  exceeding 
fine." 

Pretty  good  for  three  men  and  a  few  boys!  Solo- 
mon's temple  was  seveii  years  in  building,  and  required 
153,000  laborers  and  30,000  overseers — see  ist  Kings  5: 
13-16,  and  6:  37-38. 

After  the  completion  of  this  magnificent  temple,  Nephi 
consecrates  his  two  youngest  brothers,  Jacob  and  Joseph, 
though  now  scarcely  more  than  twenty  years  old,  to  the 
office  of  the  priesthood: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that!,  Nephi,  did  consecrate  Jacob 
and  Joseph  that  they  should  be  priests  and  teachers  over  the 
landf  of  my  people." 

In  doing  this  he  directly  broke  two  very  plain  re- 
quirements of  the  Mosaic  law.  i.  That  none  but  the 
tribe  of  Levi  were  eligible  to  the  priesthood — these  men 
being  from  the  tribe  ol  Mannaseh.  2.  That  no  one 
should  be  permitted  to  discharge  the  duties  of  a  priest 
till  thirty  years  of  age.  We  should  remember,  however, 
that  this  small  nation  had  but  little  timber  as  yet  to 

*  He  has  all  manner  of  wood,  iron,  copper,  brass,  steel,  g-old,  silver,  and 
precious  ores  in  g^reat  abundance:  precisely  what  "precious  things"  he 
needed  aside  from  all  these,  does  not  clearly  appear. 

t  They  certainly  had  plenty  of  land  to  be  priests  and  teachers  over, 
but  the  people  were  scarce. 


lOO 

select  from.  Nephi  himself  was  king  and  general  high 
priest — his  brother  Samuel  and  the  slave  Zerum  were 
the  subjects,  and  so  these  two  boys,  Jacob  and  Joseph, 
were  all  tnere  were  left  for  priests  except  the  small 
children  who  had  been  born  within  the  two  previous 
decades. 

And  friends,  it  is  during  the  next  twenty- five  years 
that  these  two  imposing  nations,  the  Nephites  and  the 
Lamanites,  had  so  many  wars  and  contentions,  shed  so 
much  blood,  and  made  so  much  history,  that  Jacob  tells 
us  in  the  passage  above  quoted  that 

"  A  hundredth  part  of  the  proceedings  of  this  people 
caanot  be  written  upon  these  plates  !  and  that  many  of  their 
proceedings  are  written  upon  the  larger  plates,  and  their 
wars,  and  their  contentions,  and  the  reigns  of  their  kings." 

A  love  of  the  marvellous,  combined  with  a  some- 
what stoical  indifference  to  the  ridiculous,  must  surely 
have  been  a  prominent  and  important  factor  in  the 
mental  make-up  of  our  author! 

d.  On  page  139,  Omni.  1:6,  7,  we  are  told  of  a 
party  of  Nephites,  under  the  leadership  of  one  Mosiah, 
who  fled  out  of  their  own  land,  and,  after  wandering  a 
long  time  through  the  wilderness,  discovered  a  land 
called  the  land  oi  Zarahemla,  inhabited  by  a  people  who 
came  out  from  Jerusalem  only  a  few  years  after  Lehi  and 
his  company;  and,  like  Lehi,  had  been  brought  by  the 
hand  of  the  Lord  across  the  great  waters,  and  had  settled 
on  this  continent,  and  increased  until  they  had  become 
a  numerous  and  wealthy  people.  And  please  note  the 
following  statement: — 

And  they  (Mosiah  and  his  company)  discovered  a  people 
who  were  called  the  people  of  Zarahemla.  Now  there  was 
great  rejoicings  among  the  people  of  Zarahemla;  and  also 
Zarahemla  (the  king)  did  rejoice  exceedingly  because   the 


loi 

Lord  had  sent  the  people  of  Mosiah  with  the  plates  of  brass 
wbich  contaiued  the  record  of  the  Jews." 

In  the  very  next  section  the  author,  evidently  for- 
getting what  he  had  just  said,  flatly  contradicts  it: 

*' A  nd  aUKhe  time  Mosiah  discovered  them  *  *  their 
language  had  become  Cf)rrupted;  and  they  bad  brongbt  no 
records  with  them;  and  they  denied  tbe  being  of  their  <^'re- 
ator;  and  Me)siah  nor  the  people  of  Mosiah  could  understand 
them." 

In  the  first  sentence  Zarahemla  and  his  people  re- 
joice because  the  Lord  had  sent  this  party  of  strangers 
to  them.  In  the  next  sentence  we  are  told  that  Zara- 
hemla and  his  \)^o^\e''  dented  the  beiv^  of  their  Creator ^ 

In  the  first  sentence  we  are  still  farther  informed 
that  the  special  reason  of  their  rejoicing  was  because 
Mosiah  and  his  company  had  brought  the  brass  plates 
containing  the  record  of  the  Jews. 

In  the  next  sentence  we  are  told  that  their  lajiguage 
had  become  so  corrupted  that  neither  Mosiah  nor  his 
people  could  Jtnderstand  them/ 

Friends,  do  you  think  this  part  of  the  Book  of 
Morman  was  inspired  of  God? 

There  are  other  discrepancies  and  contradictions 
that  can  be  explained  upon  no  other  theory  so  charitable 
as  to  suppose  that  the  author  had  a  poor  memory,  or  else 
that  his  love  of  the  marvellous  ran  away  with  his  judg- 
ment, and  sometimes  even  with  his  regard  for  the  truth. 
For  an  instance  of  real  bold  lying,  lying  that  has  a 
wicked  purpose  in  it,  see  page  25*.      But  the  limits  of 

♦Reference  is  had  to  the  stsrenient,  four  or  five  times  repeated  on  the 
one  pajre,  that  after  the  Aposth  s*  d.iv,  a  jrre-Ht  and  abominable  church  "took 
away  from  the  Gospel  of  the  L:imh  of  God  many  parts  which  are  plain  and 
most  precious;  and  nlso  m;my  covenants  of  the  Lord."  In  other  words,  that 
by  the  authority  of  the  church,  after  the  time  of  the  Apostles,  or  some  time 
alter  the  first  centurv,  the  Bible  had  much  that  was  valuable — "the  plain  and 
most  precious  parts"  taken  awav  Irom  it;  so  much  eliminated  that  "an  exceed- 
ingly great  many  do  stumble, "etc.  In  this  unfounded,  malicious  statement, 
the  author  shows  himself  as  utterly  devoid  of  principle  as  he  was  ignorant  of 
the  plainest  facts  oi  historv.  It  is  susceptible  of  the  clearest  proof  that  since 
the  first  century  not  a  chapter  has  been  taken  out  of  the  Bible. 


I02 


this  lecture  will  not  allow  a  farther  consideration  of  this 
first  point. 


2.  I  wish,  in  the  second  place,  briefly  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  peculiar  character  of  the  so  callogl  prophecies 
of  the  Book  of  Mormon.  They  are  put  in  the  precise 
lajiguage  that  records  their  fulfillment.  A  most  singu- 
lar and  unheard  of  phenomenon !  You  will  best  under- 
stand me  by  noting  a  few  specimens  out  of  the  hundreds 
that  are  found  in  the  book.  Nephi  gives  us  the  follow- 
ing specimen  of  his  father  Lehi's  prophesying  (Page 
17;  Nephi,  3:  3,  5): 

"Yea,  even  600  years  from  the  time  that  my  father  left 
Jerusalem,  a  prophet  would  the  Lord  God  raise  up  amonof  the 
Jews;  even  a  Messiah;  or  in  other  words,  a  Savior  of  the 
world. 

"And  he  spake  also  concerning  a  prophet  who  should 
come  before  the  Messiah,  to  prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord ; 
yea,  even  he  should  go  forth  and  cry  in  the  wilderness,  pre- 
pare ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  and  make  his  paths  straight; 
for  there  standeth  one  among  you  whom  ye  know  not;  and  he 
is  mightier  than  I,  whose  shoe's  latchet  I  am  not  worthy  to 
unloose.     And  much  spake  my  father  concerning  this  thing. 

"And  my  father  said  he  should  baptize  in  Bethabara  be- 
yond Jordan  ^  *  *  and  after  he  had  baptized  the  Mes- 
siah with  water,  he  should  behold  and  bear  record  that  he 
had  baptized  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  should  take  away  the 
sin  of  the  world." 

Afterwards,  Nephi  himself  prophecies  after  this 
fashion  (Pages  20,  21): 

*'And  I  beheld  the  redeemer  of  the  world  of  whom  my 
father  had  spoken;  and  I  also  beheld  the  prophet  who  should 
prepare  the  way  before  him.  And  the  Lamb  of  God  went 
forth  and  was  baptized  of  him;  and  after  he  was  baptized,  I 
beheld  the  heavens  open,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  came  down  out 
of  heaveu  and  abode  upon  him  in  the  form  of  a  dove. 

"And  he  spake  unto  me  again  saying,  look!  and  I  looked 
and  I  beheld  multitudes  of  people  who  were  sick,  and  who 
were  afflicted  with  all  manner  of  diseases,  and  with  devils 
and  unclean  spirits;  and  they  were  healed  by  the  power  of 
the  Lamb  of  God. 


I03 

*'And  I  looked,  and  beheld  the  Lamb  of  God,  that  he 
was  taken  by  the  people  *  *  *  and  I,  Nephi,  saw  that  he 
was  lifted  up  upon  the  cross  and  slain  for  the  sins  of  the 
world." 

And  thus  I  might  quote  hundreds  of  passages  re- 
lating to  Christ,  telling  his  name,  his  mother's  name, 
his  place  of  residence,  his  reputed  father's  name,  the  par- 
ticulars of  his  life  and  death,  and  the  after  history  of  the 
church  as  related  in  the  New  Testament,  or  revealed  in 
the  book  of  Revelations,  very  much  of  it  in  the  exact 
language  of  the  New  Testament.  And  the  same  thing 
is  true  of  the  prophecies  that  relate  to  the  present  time. 
All  about  Joseph  Smith,  his  name,  his  father's  n^ame,  how 
he  shall  find  those  old  plates,  the  witnesses  who  shall  see 
them,  the  ''spokesman,"  Sidney  Rigdon,  provided  to  aid 
him,  etc.,  etc.,  all  with  as  much  particularity  and  minute- 
ness of  detail  as  though  the  prophecies  had  all  been 
gotten  up  after  the  events  had  t7'anspired,  as  they  un- 
doubtedly   WERE. 

And,  indeed,  it  seems  strange  that  the  originators  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon  were  not  sharp  enough  to  cover 
up  their  fraud  a  little  more  carefully,  but  furnish  upon 
ahnost  every  page  the  materials  for  their  exposure. 

How  different  the  prophecies  of  the  Bible.  Any 
approach  to  exact  literalness  is  apparently  studiously 
avoided.  The  greater  portion  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophecies  that  relate  to  Christ  are  in  types  \  the  old  tab- 
ernacle and  temple,  its  priesthood  and  their  work,  and 
the  entire  system  of  bloody  sacrifices  of  meat  and  drink 
offerings,  are  all  prophecies  of  Christ  and  the  Christian 
dispensation. 

Another  common  method  of  revealing  the  future  is 
by  symbol.  A  good  illustration  of  this  method  was  pre- 
sented in  the  second  lecture.     The  four  beasts  seen  by 


I04 

the  prophet  Daniel  presented  in  a  remarkably  brief  com- 
pass a  prophetic  outline  of  the  history  of  the  four  leading 
nations  of  the  world  for  a  period  of  over  two  thousand 
years.  A  large  part  of  the  Book  of  Revelations  is  occupied 
with  this  style  of  prophesying,  so  is  Ezekiel.  In  fact, 
this  method  abounds  in  all  the  prophecies  of  the  Bible. 
I  can  recall  but  one  single  instance  in  the  Bible  where  a 
man*s  name  is  given  prophetically.  The  Persian  king, 
CyniSy  was  called  by  name,  by  the  prophet  Isaiah,  nearly 
I  CD  years  before  his  birth.  But  this  kind  of  literalness 
is  the  exception.  John  the  Baptist's  prophetic  name  was 
Elijah  or  Elias.  Even  Jesus,  himself,  is  not  mentioned 
by  name  in  any  of  the  Old  Testament  prophecies.  Good 
old  Jacob  called  him  "Shiloh;"  the  prophet  Zechariah 
named  him  the  * 'Branch;"  another,  the  **Rose  of  Sha- 
ron," the  **Lily  of  the  Valley,"  the  ''Lord  our  Righte- 
ousness," the  "Sun  of  Righteousness,"  etc. 

But  in  the  Book  of  Mormon,  Jesus'  first  announce- 
ment of  himself  in  this  country,  one  hundred  years  after 
the  flood,  runs  thus: 

"Behold  I  am  he  who  was  prepared  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world  to  redeem  my  people;  behold  I  am  Jesus  Christ, 
I  am  the  Father  and  tlie  8on." 

The  most  literal  prophecy  in  the  Old  Testament 
relating  to  Christ  is  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah. 
Let  me  read  you  a  portion  of  the  verses: 

1.  *'Who  hath  believed  our  report?  and  to  whom  is  the 
arm  of  the  Lord  revealed? 

2.  "For  he  shall  grow  up  before  him  as  a  tender  plant, 
and  as  a  root  oat  ot  a  dry  ground;  ha  hath  no  form  nor  come- 
liness; and  when  we  shall  see  him,  there  is  no  beauty  that 
we  should  desire  him. 

3.  *'fTe  is  despised  and  rejected  of  men;  a  man  of  sor- 
rows, and  acquainted  with  grief:  and  we  hid  as  it  were  our 
faces  from  him;  he  was  despised,  and  we  esteemed  him  not. 

7.  *'He  was  oppressed,  and  he  was  afflicted;  yet  he 
opened  not  his  mouth;  he  is  brought  as  a  lamb  to  the  slaugh- 


105 

ter,  and  as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb,  so  he  openeth 
not  his  mouth. 

9.  "Arid  he  made  his  gfrave  with  the  wicked,  and  with 
the  rich  in  his  death,  because  he  had  done  no  violence, 
neither  was  any  deceit  in  his  mouth." 

And  do  you  know,  friends,  that  although  this  chap- 
ter was  never  called  in  question  by  the  Jews  before 
Christ  came,  yet  after  he  had  lived  and  died,  and  had 
fulfilled  both  in  his  life  and  death  so  exactly  and  perfect- 
ly every  statement  made  in  this  chapter,  such  is  their 
hatred  of  the  Savior  that  many  Jews,  even  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  have  tried  to  persuade  themselves  that  this  one 
chapter  has  been  interpolated  into  their  sacred  books. 
And  infidels,  too,  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  Christ- 
ian era  to  our  own  day,  have  exhausted  every  means  in 
their  power  to  write  that  one  chapter  out  of  the  prophe- 
cies of  Isaiah,  and  persuade  themselves  it  must  have 
been  written  after  the  events,  so  plainly  foretold,  had  oc- 
curred. And  yet,  the  evidence  is  abundant  that  that 
chapter,  with  all  the  rest  of  the  book,  was  in  existence 
just  as  we  now  find  it,  at  least  200  years  bejore  Christ 
came  m  the  flesh.  The  translation  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Hebrew  into  the  Greek  language,  at  Alexandria, 
Egypt,  two  hundred  years  before  Christ,  and  the  preser- 
vation of  that  translation  by  channels  widely  diverse 
and  wholy  independent  of  the  original  Hebrew,  fur- 
nishes evidence  that  the  scholarship  of  the  world  has 
never  been  able  to  successfully  refute. 

But  now  suppose  this  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah 
had  been  written  after  this  fashion: 

"I,  Isaiah,  a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  and  inspired  by  an 
angel  from  heaven,  do  hereby  declare  unto  you,  my  beloved 
brethren,  that  in  just  712  years  from  this  date,  a  virgin  by  the 
name  of  Mary,  living  in  the  city  of  Nazareth,  shall  give  birth 
to  a  son,  whose  name  shall  be  Jesus  Christ,  the  Lamb  of  God, 
the  Savior  of  the  world.    This  child,  Jesus  Christ,  shall  live 


io6 

until  tkirty  years  old  with  his  reputed  father,  Joseph  by 
name,  and  a  carpenter  by  trade.  At  the  age  of  thirty,  he  shall 
find  his  forerunner,  John  the  Baptist,  at  a  place  called  Beth- 
abara,  beyond  the  river  Jordan,  baptizing  by  immersion  all 
who  come  to  him.  After  Jesus  is  baptized,  the  heavens  shall 
be  opened,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  be  seen  descending  in 
bodily  shape  like  a  dove  and  resting  upon  him,  and  a  voice 
from  heaven  shall  be  heard  saying,  this  is  my  beloved  son, 
hear  ye  him.  After  his  baptism,  he  shall  enter  upon  his  pub- 
lic ministry,  calling  twelve  men  to  be  with  him,  whom  he 
shall  name  apostles,  and  one  of  whom  shall  bear  the  name  of 
John,  and  shall  write  a  book  that  shallbe  called  the  Apoca- 
lypse, etc.,  etc." 

Had  we  found  this  one  chapter  of  Isaiah  thus  writ- 
ten, in  language  and  style  entirely  different  from  every 
other  chapter  in  the  book,  without  a  trace  of  the  ancient 
Hebrew  preserved,  but  instead,  an  exact  reproduction  of 
the  New  Testament  Greek,  idioms  and  all;  do  you  think 
any  sane  man  on  earth  could  be  found  willing  to  accept 
it  as  a  genuine  production  of  the  prophet  Isaiah? 

But  let  us  go  a  step  further  in  the  supposed  case. 
Suppose  this  chapter,  written  in  the  style  just  suggested, 
is  a  modern  discovery  altogether.  A  man  in  our  day 
professes  to  have  found  some  ancient  writings  engraven 
upon  old  plates.  The  discoverer  is  an  ignorant  man, 
knows  nothing  of  either  ancient  or  modern  languages, 
and  hence,  has  no  possible  means  of  knowing  whether 
these  plates  he  has  found  contain  real  ancient  writings 
or  simply  unmeaning  scrawls  that  somebody  has  scratch- 
ed upon  those  plates  for  their  own  amusement,  or  for 
the  express  purpose  of  imposing  upon  his  credulity  and 
ignorance.  And  suppose  our  discoverer  carefully  and 
studiously  keeps  those  plates  hid  from  the  public  eye, 
refuses  to  allow  a  single  scholar  to  examine  them,  or  any 
person  at  all  competent  to  judge  of  their  real  character, 
but  claims  that  an  angel  from  heaven  is  directing  him  in 
the  matter. 


io7 

And  by  and  by  there  is  published  to  the  world  a 
pretended  translation  of  those  plates,  stating  that  the 
said  plates  ate  a  part  of  the  original  book  of  Isaiah,  the 
prophet;  that  a  lost  chapter  is  now  restored  to  the  world 
by  the  help  of  an  angel  of  God. 

But  upon  examination,  this  pretended  lost  chapter, 
translated  by  this  ignorant  man,  helped  by  his  angel,  is 
found  to  be  made  up  exclusively  from  our  present  Eng- 
lish version  of  the  New  Testament,  copied  word  for  word 
from  the  history  of  Jesus  Christ  as  we  now  have  it  recorded 
by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John — a  feat  that  any 
Sunday-school  scholar  of  ordinary  intelligence  could 
perform  without  any  inspiration  from  God,  or  special 
help  from  an  angel.  Such  prophecies  can  be  manufac- 
tured to  order  by  the  cart  load.  And  yet  precisely  this 
is  the  character  of  a  large  portion  of  the  prophecies  of 
the  Book  of  Mormon.  And  you  and  I,  friends,  are 
asked  to  believe  that  such  a  silly  and  transparent  fraud 
is  from  God. 


J.  In  the  third  and  last  place,  I  desire  briefly  to  call 
attention  to  a  few  of  the  reputed  miracles  of  the  Book  of 
Mormon.     Several  were  mentioned  in  the  third  lecture: 

a.  The  first  to  be  mentioned  this  evening  occurred 
in  immediate  connection  with  the  separation  between 
Nephi  and  his  two  brothers,  Laman  and  Lemuel,  and 
the  organization  of  the  two  infant  but  rival  nations  already 
referred  to,  between  twenty  and  thirty  years  after  leav- 
ing Jerusalem. 

The  miracle  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
of  the  ages,  settling  one  of  the  mooted  questions  of  four- 
hundred  years  standing:     ''How  came  the  American  In- 


lo8 

dian  with  a  black  skinf     (The  American  Indian  is  the 
reputed  descendant  of  the  Lamanites.) 

Nephi  tells  us  that  his  two  brothers,  with  their  fami- 
lies, because  of  their  opposition  to  Nephi,  and  their  gen- 
eral depravity,  became  the  subjects  of  a  peculiar  curse, 
— Page  66,  2nd  Nephi,  4:  4: 

"For  behold  they  had  hardonei  their  hearts  aorainst  him, 
that  they  had  become  like  unto  a  flint;  wlier<-f()re  as  they 
were  white,  and  exceeding  fair  and  delisfhtsome,  that  they 
might  not  be  enticinsf  unto  my  people,  the  Lord  God  did 
cause  a  skin  of  blackness  to  come  upon  them.  And  thus 
saith  the  Lord  God,  I  will  cause  that  they  nhall  be  Joath- 
some  unto  thy  people,  save  they  shall  repent  of  their  iniqui- 
ties. And  cursed  shall  be  the  seed  of  him  that  mixeth  with 
their  seed;  for  they  shall  be  cursed  even  wilh  the  same  curs- 
ing.   And  the  Lord  spake  it  and  it  was  done." 

It  is  strange  what  peculiar  favorites  of  Heaven  this 
Nephi  and  his  people  were,  that  God  should  be  willing, 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  removing  temptation  from  them, 
"  that  they  might  not  be  enticing  unto  my  people,*'  to 
curse  his  own  brothers  with  a  skin  of  blackness.  It  is 
something  God  never  did  for  any  other  people  under 
heaven.  He  never  exhibited  such  tender  care  for  the 
Jeivs  in  all  the  Old  Testament  history.  The  New  Tes- 
tament furnishes  no  incidents  of  this  character.  The 
early  Christians,  in  their  best  and  purest  days,  had  no 
such  favors  shown  them.  And,  so  far  as  we  can  learn, 
the  Lord  has  never  "  caused  a  skin  of  blackness  to  come 
upon"  any  Gentile  of  modern  times,  to  prevent  their 
"  becoming  enticing  to  my  people,''  the  Latter-day 
Saints.  All  God's  other  saints,  in  all  the  ages,  have 
been  left  to  grapple  with  temptations.  The  notion  some- 
how has  pervaded  the  divine  mind  that  strong  tempta- 
tions and  fiery  trials  were  needful  to  strengthen  the  faith 
and  purify  the  life  of  his  people;  and,  therefore,  he  has 
allowed  his  people — all  his  other  people  except  these 


I09 

Nephites — to  meet  sin  face  to  face  with  all  its  blandish- 
ments; to  live  among  and  mingle  freely  with  those  who 
were  **  white  and  exceeding  fair  and  delightsome,"  with- 
out any  such  tender  precaution  as  to  turn  their  temptors' 
skin  black  and  make  them  loathsome,  least  his  dear 
people  should  be  coaxed  into  sin  by  their  enticements ! 

If  there  could  be  anything  more  silly  or  preposter- 
ous than  this,  it  is  found  on  page  436,  Nephi,  i:  9,  oc- 
curring over  five  hundred  years  after  the  above: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  those  Lamanites  who  bad 
united  with  the  Nephites  were  numbered  among  the  Nephites, 
and  their  curse  was  taken  from  them,  and  their  skin  became 
white  like  unto  the  Nephites;  and  their  young  men  and  their 
daughters  became  exceeding  fair,  and  they  were  numbered 
among  the  Nephites,  and  were  called  Nephites." 

Wonderful!  Wonderful!  When  a  black  man  is 
soundly  converted  and  unites  himself  with  the  people  of 
God,  the  curse  is  removed,  and  he  becomes  white  like 
the  Nephites!  Is'nt  it  so?  Certainly,  God  is  no 
respector  of  persons.  He  is  not  partial  in  the  bestow- 
ment  of  his  favors.  Would  he  remove  the  curse  once, 
and  in  one  portion  of  the  world,  and  never  do  it  again? 
Why,  then,  in  all  the  history  of  the  world  was  such  a 
phenonema  never  heard  of,  that  the  color  of  the  skin  was 
changed  in  conversion?  Have  the  unfortunate  colored 
people  anywhere  on  earth,  in  all  the  history  of  the  past, 
been  made  white  by  conversion?  Ah!  but  I  forget.  In 
the  estimation  of  our  Mormon  friends  there  have  been 
no  true  conversions  since  the  first  century  after  Christ 
until  now.  But  in  the  very  first  age  of  the  Church  there 
were  multitudes  of  the  Ethiopians  converted.  Do  you 
think  the  eunuch  became  white  after  Phillip  baptized 
him?  And  now,  in  the  last  days,  since  the  fullness  of 
the  Gospel  has  been  restored  to  the  earth  by  the  Latter- 


no 

day  Saints,  and  scores  and  hundreds  from  the  Indian 
races,  the  colored  people,  Asiatics,  Sandwich  Islanders, 
&c.,  have  been  soundly  and  thoroughly  converted,  has 
the  skin  of  any  of  these  converts  been  made  white  by 
the  change  any  farther  than  soap  and  water  would 
whiten  them?  PViends,  produce  your  specimens,  show 
us  one  single  instance  of  the  bleaching  power  of  con- 
version upon  the  skin,  or  else  hang  your  heads  for 
shame,  that  you  have  allowed  yourself  to  believe  that 
such  silly  twaddle  as  this  could  be  the  word  of  Him  who 
is  the  same  yesterday^  to-day  y  and  for  ever. 

b.  A  little  affair,  too  unimportant  to  be  noticed, 
were  it  not  that  it  flatly  contradicts  a  rule  which  the 
world  in  general,  and  all  biblical  scholars  in  particular, 
have  taken  for  granted  without  a  question,  because  it  so 
fully  accords,  not  only  with  human  reason  and  common 
sense,  but  with  all  the  examples  of  the  Bible,  and  all  the 
records  of  God*s  dealings  with  his  people.  The  rule  is 
this:  In  the  performance  of  a  miracle,  God  7iever  does 
for  us  what  we  can  do  for  ourselves.  He  cultivates  self- 
reliance  and  independence  to  that  degree  that  he  always 
employs  human  agency,  human  hands,  and  human 
brains,  as  far  as  they  can  be  employed;  and  the  divine 
aid  comes  in  only  where  the  utmost  of  hicman  effort  fails 
to  reach.  All  that  man  can  do  he  is  expected  to  do. 
God  only  does  for  us  what  we  cannot  do  for  ourselves. 
But  upon  page  37,  Nephi,  5:21,  we  have  this  statement: 

"And  after  I  had  made  a  bellows  that  I  might  have 
wherewith  to  blow  the  fire,  I  did  smite  two  stones  together, 
that  I  might  make  fire;  for  the  Lord  had  not  hitherto  suf- 
fered that  we  should  make  much  fire,  as  we  journeyed  in  the 
wilderness;  for  he  said,  I  will  make  thy  food  become  sweet, 
that  ye  cook  it  not;  and  I  also  will  be  your  light  in  the  wild- 
erness." 

I  think  comment  upon  this  is  not  needful.      There 


Ill 

was  no  lack  of  wood  for  fire  in  the  wilderness,  no  lack  of 
stones  to  smite  together,  but  simply  to  prove  to  them 
that  they  are  the  Lord's  special  pets,  he  saves  them  the 
trouble  of  making  fire  by  performing  the  prodigious 
miracle  of  making  raw  meat  sweet  and  palatable,  and  of 
furnishing  them  hght  in  the  wilderness  for  their  evening 
entertainments! 

Of  a  similar  character  is  a  little  occurrence  related 
just  before,  page  35.  It  is  usually  supposed  that  a  little 
common  sense  would  be  sufficient  to  tell  a  man  who  had 
spent  some  time  traveling  in  a  wild,  mountainous  region, 
about  where  he  would  naturally  go  to  find  wild  game,  if 
he  wishes  to  hunt.  But  Nephi's  God  is  so  unusually 
good  to  him,  that  he  takes  the  trouble  to  write  the  di- 
rections upon  the  pointers  in  a  certain  bal',  called  the 
'^Director,"  (and  which  I  will  presently  explain): 

"And  I  said  unto  my  father,  whiiher  shall  Tgo  to  obtain 
food?  And  it  came  to  pass    Ihat  I  did  enquire  of  the  Lord. 

"  *  *  *  And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  voice 
of  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  look  upon  the  ball,  and  behold  ihe 
tilings  which  are  written.  *  *  *  ^.nd  it  came  to 
pass  that  I,  Nephi,  did  gro  forth  up  into  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain, according  to  the  directions  which  were  given  upon  the 
ball.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  I  did  slay  wild  beasts,  inso- 
much that  I  did  obtnin  food  for  our  families:  and  it  came  to 
pass  that  I  did  return*  to  our  tents,  bearing  the  beasts  which 
I  had  slain." 

c.     But  let  me  tell  you  about  this  strange  ball,  page 

33: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  the  voice  of  the  Lerd  spake 
unto  my  father  by  night,  and  commanded  him  that  on  the 
morrow  he  should  take  his  journey  into  the  wilderness.  And 
it  came  to  pass,  that  as  my  father  arose  in  the  morning  and 
went  forth  to  the  tent  door,  to  his  great  astonishment  he  be- 
held   upon    the    ground,   a    round   ball  of  curious    work- 

*  Whs  the  help  o(  an  anarol  needed  to  tell  us  that  he  returned  to  his  tent 
after  a  successful  hunt?  Would  God  lumber  his  book  with  statements  that  a 
writer  of  ordinary  intelligence  would  take  for  granted  without  recording. 


112 

mansliip,  and  it  was  of  fine  brass.  And  within  the  ball  were 
two  spindles;  and  the  one  pointed  the  way  whit  her  we  should 
go  into  the  wilderness." 

And  they  start  into  the  wilderness,  '^following  the 
directions  of  the  ball,  which  led  us  in  the  more  fertile 
parts  of  the  wilderness. ' ' 

Here,  friends,  is  a  round  ball,  made  of  fine  brass, 
and  within  it  are  two  spindles,  one  of  which  points  out 
constantly  '*the  way  whither  we  should  go  into  the  wild- 
erness." Just  how  they  could  see  spindles  inside  of  a 
round  brass  ball,  does  not  appear.  However,  as  it  was 
of  curious  workmanship,  this  may  have  been  one  of  the 
curious  things  about  it,  we  will  therefore  pass  this  as  an 
unexplained  wonder. 

But  those  two  spindles  within  this  ball  are  the  real 
puzzles.  The  author  calls  them  spindles  h(tve,  but  on  the 
next  page  he  calls  them  pointers.  Either  word  would 
indicate  that  they  must  have  been  small  affairs,  not  cap- 
able of  holding  a  very  large  amount  of  reading  matter. 
But  see  page  35: 

*'And  it  came  to  pass  that  I,  Nephi,  beheld  the  pointers 
which  were  in  the  ball,  that  they  did  work  according  to  the 
faith,  and  diligence,  and  heed  which  we  did  give  unto  them. 
And  there  was  also  written  upon  them  a  new  writing,  which 
was  plain  to  be  read,  which  did  give  us  understanding  con- 
cerning the  ways  of  the  Lord;  and  it  was  written  and  changed 
from  time  to  time,  according  to  the  faith  and  diligence  which 
we  gave  unto  it.  And  thus  we  see  that  by  small  means  the 
Lord  can  bring  about  great  things." 

Nephi's  God  certainly  had  an  eye  to  convenience  in 
this  cute  little  affair.  He  had  usually  taken  the  trouble 
to  send  an  angel  down  from  heaven,  or  come  himself, 
to  inform  Nephi  and  his  father  as  to  his  will,  from  time 
to  time.  But  by  this  ingenious  mechanical  device  he 
saves  himself  any  further  trouble  in  that  direction.  One 
of  the  spindles  points  out  the  general  directions  they  are 


113 

to  travel,  and  the  other  one  (possibly  both)  has  written 
upon  it  directions  for  special  occasions,  as  for  instance, 
where  Nephi  shall  find  a  deer,  or  a  bear,  or  a  zvild  turkey, 
when  the  company  are  in  want  of  food;  the  directions 
being  ''changed  from  time  to  time,  according  to  the 
faith  and  diligence  which  we  gave  unto  it.  And  thus  we 
see  that  by  small  means  the  Lord  can  bring  about  great 
things.'*     Yea,  verily. 

d.  While  upon  this  subject  of  ingenious  inventions, 
let  me  call  your  attention  to  another,  called  a  compass, 
also  prepared  of  the  Lord,  which  had  the  peculiar  quahty  of 
becoming  balky  and  refusing  to  ivork  when  anything  was 
done  against  the  Lord's  pet,  Nephi. 

After  wandering  in  the  wilderness  about  eight  years 
altogether,  Nephi,  at  the  command  of  God,  builds  a 
ship,  and  the  whole  party  embark  in  it,  with  piovisions, 
etc.,  to  last  them  during  a  trip  across  the  Indian  and 
Pacific  Oceans,  until  they  shall  land  upon  the  shores  of 
the  new  world,  their  promised  land.  Everything  moves 
smoothly  for  a  time;  for  the  "space  of  many  days  they 
were  driven  forth  before  the  wind  towards  the  promised 
land."  But  by  and  by,  a  mutiny  on  ship  board! 
Nephi  preaches,  and  his  two  older  brothers  don't  like  his 
preaching.  But  please  read  page  42,  III  Nephi,  5: 
37-42 : 

"And  it  came  to  pass,  that  Laman  and  Lemuel  did 
take  me  and  bind  me  with  cords,  and  they  did  treat  me  with 
much  harshneps. 

**And  it  came  to  pass  that  after  they  had  bound  me,  in- 
somuch that  1  could  not  move,  the  compass  which  had  been 
prepared  of  the  Lord  did  cease  to  work,  wherefore  they  knew 
not  whither  they  should  steer  the  ship,  insomuch*  that  there 
arone  a  great  storm,  yea  a  great  and  terrible  tempest,  and 
were  driven  back  upon  the  waters  for  the  space  of  three  days, 

*  Just  how  thfir  inability  to  steer  the  ship  produced  this  teriffic  storm  is 
not  explained.    Probably  the  author  mistook  the  meaning^  oiinsomuch. 


114 

and  they  began  to  be  frightened  exceedingly,  least  they 
should  be  drowned  in  the  sea;  nevertheless  they  did  not 
l<f)Ose  me. 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  we  were  about  to  be  swallowed 
up  in  the  depths  of  the  sea.  And  after  we  had  been  driven 
back  upon  the  sea  for  tlie  space  of  four  dnys,  my  brethren 
l)egan  to  see  that  tlie  judgments  of  God  were  upon  them,  and 
that  tbt,>  must  perish,  save  that  they  should  repent  of  their 
iniquities;  wherefore  they  came  unto  me  and  loosed  the 
bonds  which  were  upon  my  wrists 

''And  it  can>e  to  pass  after  they  had  loosed  me,  behold 
I  took  the  compass  and  it  did  work  whither  I  desired  it.  And 
it  came  to  pass  that  T  prayed  unto  the  Lord;  and  after  I  had 
prayed  the  winds  did  cease,  and  the  storm  did  cease,  and 
there  was  a  great  calm." 

Now,  friends,  do  ;not  think  me  a  natural  fault- 
finder, or  a  cavailler;  but  how  can  any  intelligent  mind 
read  this  without  desiring  to  ask  a  few  questions?  And, 
first,  I  am  slightly  puzzled  over  this  binding  of  Nephi 
with  cords  by  his  brothers.  They  had  tried  that  thing 
on  at  least  three  times  before  with  very  unusual  results. 

On  page  7,  as  these  two  older  brothers  began  to 
smite  Nephi  with  a  rod,  suddenly  an  angel  of  the  Lord 
appeared  upon  the  scene  and  said,  *'Why  do  ye  smite 
your  younger  brother  with  a  rod?  Know  ye  not  that 
the  Lord  hath  chosen  him  to  be  ruler  over  you,  and 
this  because  of  your  iniquities?" 

On  page  13,  they  became  so  enraged  at  his  preach- 
ing that  they  bound  him  with  cords,  proposing  to  leave 
him  in  the  wilderness,  to  be  devoured  by  wild  beasts; 
and  he  simply  prayed  unto  the  Lord,  and  suddenly  ''the 
bonds  were  loosed  from  my  hands  and  feet,  and  I  stood 
before  my  brethren  and  spake  unto  them  again." 

On  page  40,  as  they  were  about  to  lay  hands  upon 
him,  and  throw  him  into  the  sea,  he  coolly  straightened 
up  and  said  to  them: 

"In  the  name  of  the  Almighty  God,  I  command  you  that 
ye  touch  me  not,  for  I  am  filled  with  the  power  of  God,  even 


115 

unto  the  consumiDg  of  my  flesh;  and  whosoever  shall  lay 
hands  upon  me,  shall  wither  even  as  a  dried  reed;  and  he 
shall  be  as  naught  before  the  power  of  God,  for  God  shall 
smite  him." 

And    the   brothers'    wicked  purposes  immediately 

collapsed : 

'* Neither  durst  they  lay  their  hands  upon  me,  nor  touch 
me  with  their  fingers,  even  for  the  space  of  many  days,  least 
they  should  wither  before  me." 

But  in  a  few  days  after  this,  the  climax  of  absurdity 
is  reached;  the  Lord  is  represented  as  removing  this  ter- 
rible ban,  * 'raising  the  blockade'*  as  it  were,  on  this 
withering  business,  by  introducing  the  following  silly  and 
childish  expedient  (page  41): 

*'A.nd  it  came  to  pass,  that  the  Lord  said  unto  me, 
stretch  forth  thiae  hand  unto  thy  brothers,  and  they  shall  not 
wither  before  thee,  but  I  will  shock  them,  saith  the  Lord,  and 
this  will  T  do,  that  they  may  know  that  I  am  the  Lord  their 
God.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  I  stretched  forth  my  hand  un- 
to my  brethren  and  they  did  not  wither  before  me,  but  the 
Lord  did  shake  then  even  aco)riing  to  the  word  which  he 
had  spoken.  And  now.  they  j^aid.  we  kn«)w  of  a  surety  that 
the  Lord  is  with  thee;  for  we  know  that  it  is  the  power  of  the 
Lord  that  hath  shaken  us.  And  they  fell  down  before  me, 
and  were  about  to  worship  m.%  but  I  would  not  suffer  them, 
saying  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  honor  thy  father  and 
thy  mother." 

But  now,  after  all  these  experiences  of  the  past, 
and  this  that  he  records  upon  these  plates,  you  remem- 
ber, is  not  a  hundredth  part  of  the  things  that  actually 
occurred;  probably,  upon  "mine  other  plates"  would  be 
found  a  hundred  such  incidents  as  this;  and  yet,  after  all 
this,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  these  unnatural  and 
strangely  perverse  brothers  still  venture  to  bind  this 
chosen  favorite  of  heaven,  and  that  this  time  they  suc- 
ceed. No  angel  appears  to  rebuke  them,  no  shock  is 
felt  when  they  touch  him,  no  withering  of  limb  or  mus- 
cle; they  bind  him  so  tight  that  he  cannot  move,  and 


ii6 

the  cords  are  not  suddenly  broken;  he  remains  in  their 
power  for  four  long  days.  But,  lo!  instead  of  all  these 
past  experiences,  an  unexpected  and  unheard  of  phe- 
nomenon occurs!  Their  trusted  compass,  without  which 
they  are  lost  at  sea,  refuses  to  work,  all  on  Nephi's  ac- 
count; and  suddenly  a  terrible  storm  arises.  Nature, 
herself,  proposes  to  show  her  spite  for  the  insult  offered 
to  this  peculiar  favorite  of  the  gods.  And  this  storm  con- 
tinues and  increases  its  fury  day  and  night,  until,  fright- 
ened out  of  their  wits,  and  threatened  with  immediate 
death,  these  wicked  brothers  are  forced  once  more  to 
terms,  and  unloose  their  brother.  Whereupon  the  storm 
ceases  at  once,  and  the  compass  resumes  its  wonted  fi- 
delity. 

And  what,  friends,  has  been  accomplished  by  all 
this  reversal  of  nature's  laws  and  angry  exhibition  of  the 
tempest?  In  all  the  Bible  examples  of  miraculous  inter- 
position, there  is  some  important  end  to  be  gained,  an 
end  worthy  the  character  and  the  dignity  of  the  great 
God.  But  what  has  been  gained  in  this  case?  An  ex- 
hibition of  spite  on  the  part  of  Nephi,  and  whipping  in- 
to submission  those  irate  and  foolish  brothers. 

Nephi  evidently  designs  in  this  narrative  to  ''pose'* 
as  a  saint  of  the  first  water,  but  look  at  the  facts  as  he 
himself  states  them.  His  wife  and  babes  were  pleading 
and  crying  with  tears  day  and  night,  and  his  poor  old 
father  and  mother  were  so  overcome  by  the  excitement 
and  the  excessive  strain  of  the  four  days'  terrific  storm 
that  they  were  prostrated,  and  brought  down  to  death's 
door;  and,  in  fact,  the  whole  company  are  about  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  the  angry  sea;  and  yet  this  man,  Nephi, 
not  only  refuses  to  pray  and  thus  bring  about  a  great 
calm,  but  he  coolly  occupies  his  holy  soul  in  spiritual  ex- 


117 

ercises,  for  he  says,  ^'Nevertheless,  I  did  look  unto  my 
God,  and  I  did  praise  him  all  the  day  long."  As  much 
as  to  say  to  his  brothers,  "Now  I  have  got  you,  and  we 
will  see  who  will  beat  this  time!  Let  the  old  folks  die, 
and  wife  and  babies  cry,  it  will  not  disturb  my  peace  so 
long  as  I  can  whip  you  into  submission  by  the  help  of 
this  storm  and  the  balky  compass!  When  you  say 
'quits,'  and  unloose  me,  then  I  will  pray  and  fix  this 
thing  up,  but  not  till  then!" 

But  a  word  about  that  compass.  It  is  exceedingly 
puzzling  to  ascertain  what  it  was  good  lor.  Apparently 
as  useless  as  a  "fifth  wheel." 

If  the  pointers  in  that  brass  director  worked  as 
usual,  pointing  out  the  direction  they  should  go,  of 
what  possible  use  the  compass?  If,  however,  that  brass 
director  was  a  land  machine  and  would  not  work  upon 
salt  water,  how  did  Nephi  find  out  the  directions  he  must 
go  to  reach  the  desired  promised  land.  He  had  never 
been  there,  never  met  one  who  had  been  there,  how  then 
did  he  know  which  way  to  work  his  compass?  And  when 
the  naughty  compass  refused  to  work  for  the  brothers, 
how  did  they  find  out  that  they  were  goiiig  backwards 
,  during  the  four  days  of  storm?  And  if  they  did  know 
without  the  aid  of  the  compass  that  they  were  going 
backwards,  what  was  the  use  of  the  compass?  And  why  did 
they  not  shift  their  sails  and  go  the  other  way?  And 
when  finally  Nephi  took  the  compass  "and  it  did  work 
whither  I  desired  it,''  not  controlled,  as  the  modern  com- 
pass, by  the  earth's  currents,  but  by  the  sweet  will  of 
Nephi,  we  ask  again,  what  use  the  compass?* 

♦About  as  useful  as  the  pioneer  hog-  scales  cf  California.  A  wide 
plank  is  balanced  across  a  lo^,  the  hog  fastened  to  one  end,  and  stones  piled 
on  ihe  other  end  till  they  balance  the  hog^;  and  then  £uess  at  the  weight  of  the 
stones. 


ii8 

e.  I  had  reserved  for  the  last  what  is  evidently  our 
author's  great  ''master-piece"  in  the  way  of  astounding 
miracles.  But  I  have  already  exhausted  your  patience 
by  the  extreme  length  of  this  service,  and  I  will,  there- 
fore, only  in  the  briefest  possible  manner,  allude  to  this 
climax  of  all  the  miracles,  which  occupies  four  or  five 
pages  of  very  closely  printed  matter  in  the  Book  of  Mor- 
mon, and  gathers  into  it  more  that  is  strange  and  unac- 
countable and  foolish  and  physically  impossible,  I  may 
safely  say,  than  any  other  miracle  ever  performed  upon 
earth.  The  author,  evidently,  mounts  the  fiery  steed  of 
his  imagination  and  herds  together  every  strange  thing, 
every  wonderful  thing,  every  blood-curdling  story,  and' 
every  impossible  thing  he  had  ever  heard  of,  or  thought 
of,  or  dreamed  of,  and  attempts,  in  this  one  master  effort, 
to  combine  them  all  into  one  htcge  miracle! 

He  finds  the  fitting  occasion  for  such  a  display  of 
exalted  genius  in  the  death  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the 
central  point  in  this  world's  history;  in  fact,  the  central 
act  in  the  grander  drama  of  the  entire  universe  of  worlds. 

In  the  New  Testament  record,  we  learn  that  while 
the  Lord  Jesus  was  suspended  upon  the  cross,  from  the 
sixth  hour  to  the  ninth  hour,  there  was  darkness  over  all 
the  land,  that  is,  the  land  of  Judea.  This  darkness  was 
followed  by  an  earthquake,  the  rending  of  the  veil  in  the 
temple,  etc.,  at  the  instant  Jesus  expired  upon  the  cross, 
as  if  nature  were  expressing  her  sympathy  with  her  suffer- 
ing and  dying  Creator.  All  instantly  ceased,  however, 
as  soon  as  Jesus*  sufferings  were  ended  and  his  soul  re- 
leased. 

But  our  author,  true  to  his  instincts  to  beat  the 
Bible,  and  everything  ever  written  by  man  or  by  the 
gods,   begins  his  account  by  recording  a  three  hours' 


119 

storm,  the  most  terrific  and  destructive  ever  heard  of. 
In  three  hours,  destruction  and  desolation  have  swept 
over  this  entire  country,  from  the  southern  coasts  of 
South  America  to  the  northern  seas  of  this  northern 
continent.  Sixteen  great  and  populous  cities  are  ex- 
pressly mentioned  by  name  as  completely  annihilated. 
Some  of  them  set  on  fire  and  burned  to  ashes  by  the 
terrific  lightning;  others  sunk  down  into  the  earth,  the 
earth  opening  her  mouth  and  swallowing  them  up;  others 
still,  upon  the  sea  coast,  swept  away  by  immense  ocean 
waves;  while  still  others  were  covered  up  in  an  instant 
by  a  neighboring  mountain  tipping  over  and  burying 
them  out  of  sight.  And  these  sixteen  are  only  specimens 
of  the  fearful  destruction  that  swept  over  the  entire 
country: 

"And  there  was  a  great  and  terrible  destruction  in  the 
laud  southward  (South  America),  but  behold,  there  was  a 
more  ^aeat  and  terrible  destruction  in  the  land  northward 
(North  America):  for  behold,  the  whole  face  of  the  land  was 
changed,  because  of  the  tempests  and  the  whirlwinds  and  the 
thunderings  and  the  lightnings  and  the  exceeding  great  quak- 
ing of  the  whole  earth.  *  *  *  And  many  great  and  nota- 
ble cities  were  sunk,  and  many  burned,  and  many  shook  un- 
til the  buildings  thereof  had  fallen  to  the  earth,  and  the  in- 
habitants thereof  were  slain."  Some  cities  remained,  "but 
the  damage  thereof  was  exceeding  great.  *  *  *  And  thus 
the  face  of  the  whole  earth  became  deformed." 

And  all  this  frightful  destruction  of  human  life  and 
property,  and  deforming  of  earth, /^r  ^^//^^/.^  To  signal- 
ize the  consumation  of  God's  grand  plan  of  mercy,  of 
salvaii07iy  of  peace  and  good  will  to'  men  !* 

But  this  was  only  the  beginning  of  wonders.     After 


*Tn  entire  harmony  and  beautiful  accord  with  the  real  design  of  Jesus' 
death,  we  learn  that  in  Palestine,  (See  Matthew,  27:  52,  53),  at  the  instant 
Jesus  said,  '*Jt  is  finished,"  and  g^ave  up  the  Ghost,  grraves  were  opened,  and 
many  bodies  of  the  saints  which  slept  arose,  etc.  That  is,  ///^,  resurrection^ 
^n^nnt  destructiott  and  death,  were  the  accompaniments  of  Jesus*  completion 
of  the  grand  work  of  human  redemption. 


120 

three  hours'  of  storm,  then  the  darkness  began.     And 
such  darkness! 

*'Thick  darkness  upon  all  the  face  of  the  land,  insomuch 
that  the  inhabitants  thereof  could  feel  the  vapor  of  darkness; 
and  there  could  be  no  light,  neither  candles,  neither  torches, 
neither  could  there  be  a  fire  kindled  with  their  fine  and  ex- 
ceedinof  dry  wood  "  (Friends,  could  God  inspire  such  non- 
sense?) And  this  "did  last  for  the  space  of  three  day 8."  Mean- 
time, *'There  was  great  mourning  and  howling  and  weeping 
among  all  the  people  continually.  *  *  *  And  thus  were 
the  bowlings  of  the  people  great  and  terrible." 

And  right  in  the  midst  of  all  this  horrible  tempest 
and  darkness  that  extinguished  fires,  and  would  not  al- 
low hghts  to  burn,  and  the  terrible  bowlings  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  Lord  Jesus  suddenly  appears  upon  the  scene!  His 
body,  of  course,  was  at  that  time  peacefully  sleeping  in 
Joseph's  new  tomb  in  Palestine;  but  his  spirit  appears 
and  speaks  with  the  most  remarkable  voice  that  has  ever 
been  heard  on  earth: 

"And  it  came  to  pass  that  there  was  a  voice  heard  among 
all  the  inbaV)itants  of  the  earth,  upon  all  the  face  of  this  land 
("This  land,"  at  that  time,  included  the  whole  of  North  and 
South  America,)  crying  wo,  wo,  wo,  unto  the  people." 

And  then  follows  an  address  that  occupies  two  pages, 
in  which  he  recounts  all  the  terrible  things  that  have  oc- 
curred, mentions  the  names  of  the  various  cities  that 
have  been  so  suddenly  blotted  out  of  existence,  and  tells 
the  reason  why  this  terrible  visitation  has  been  permitted, 
because  of  their  sins,  dll  the  while  proceeding  upon  the 
supposition  that  those  whom  he  is  addressing  know  all 
the  facts.     But  do  they?     Let  me  read  you  again : 

"And  in  one  place  they  were  heard  to  cry,  saying.  Oh, 
that  we  had  repented  before  this  great  and  terrible  day,  and 
then  would  our  brethren  have  been  spared,  and  they  would 
not  have  been  burned  in  that  great  city  Zarahemla." 


121 

How  did  they  know  that  the  city  of  Zarahemla  had 
been  burned? 

"And  in  another  place  they  were  heard  to  cry  and  mourn, 
saying,  ( )h,  that  we  had  repented  before  this  iiieut  aud  terri- 
ble day,  and  had  n^t  killed  aad  btoaei  the  prophets,  and  catt 
them  out  (A  quotation  from  the  New  Testament):  then  would 
our  mothers  and  our  fair  daughters  and  our  children  have 
been  spared,  and  not  have  been  buried  up  in  that  great  city 
Moronihah." 


This  is  the  silliest  nonsense; a  physical  impossibility. 
Please  recall  the  situation.  At  the  very  beginning-  of 
such  a  frightful  storm,  a  most  destructive  tornado  and 
earthquake  combined,  every  family  will  rush  to  their  cel- 
lars, or  out  to  some  place  of  shelter,  and  there  remain, 
frightened  beyond  a  thought  of  their  neighbors  till  the 
fury  of  the  storm  has  passed.  But  they  have  scarcely 
reached  their  hiding  places  when  this  awful  darkness 
overtakes  them,  and  they  are  buried  as  in  a  living  grave 
for  the  three  days!  No  lights  are  possible,  they  can  see 
nothing;  and  as  the  horrible  roar  ot  the  tempest,  and 
the  reeling  and  rocking  of  the  earth  beneath  them  con- 
tinues, they  dare  not  venture  outside,  least  they  be  over- 
whelmed. They,  therefore,  know  nothing  and  can  know 
nothing  of  what  has  happened  to  their  nearest  neighbors; 
how  much  less  of  towns  and  cities  that  are  hundreds  and 
some  of  them  thousands  of  miles  apart.  The  telegraph 
wires  are  all  down,  the  railroad  tracks  are  all  torn  up, 
the  telephone  business  as  well  as  the  daily  papers  have 
all  suspended,  besides,  the  public  highways  have  been 
rendered  impassable;  there  is,  therefore,  no  possibility 
of  finding  out,  till  after  the  darkness  passes  away,  that 
the  inhabitants  of  that  great  city  Zarahemla  have  been 
burned,  or  that  a  mountain  has  tipped  over  and  buried 
that  great  city  Moronihah  and  its  people  out  of  sight 


122 


forever.     The  whole  conception,  as  you  see,   Is  most  ri- 
diculously absurd,  and  so  is  the  closing  scene: 

*'ADd  it  came  to  pass  that  thus  did  the  three  da\s  pass 
away.  And  it  was  in  the  morning,  and  the  darkness  "dissap- 
pears  from  off  the  face  of  the  land,  and  the  earth  did  cease  to 
tremble,  and  th8  rocks  did  cease  to  rend,  and  the  dreadful 
groanings  did  cease,  and  all  the  tumultuous  noises  did  pass 
away,  and  the  earth  did  cleavt^  together  again  that  it  stood,(?) 
and  the  mourning,  and  the  weeping,  and  the  wailing  of 
the  people  who  were  snared  alive  did  cease;  and  their  mourn- 
ing was  turned  into  joy,*  and  their  lamentations  into  the 
praise  and  thanksgiving  unto  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  their 
Hedeemer.'* 


My  dear  friends,  I  have  spoken  thus  earnestly  and 
plainly  because  my  whole  soul  is  moved,  profoundly 
moved,  in  this  matter.  I  believe  with  all  my  heart,  I  am 
forced  by  irresistable  logic  to  believe,  that  the  Book  of 
Mormon  is  a  fraud.  And  believing  this,  I  ought  to 
speak  earnesdy  and  plainly.  Let  me  read  you  again  the 
earnest,  pointed  words  of  one  of  your  most  revered 
leaders,  Orson  Pratt: 

'This  book  must  be  either  true  or  false.  If  true,  it  is  one 
of  the  most  important  messages  ever  sent  from  God  to  man, 
affecting  both  the  temporal  and  eternal  interests  of  every  peo- 
ple under  heaven.  If  false,  it  is  one  of  the  most  cunning, 
wicked,  bold,  deep-laid  impositions  ever  palmed  upon  the 
world;  calculated  to  deceive  and  ruin  millions  who  will  sin- 
cerely receive  it  as  the  word  of  God,  and  will  suppose  them- 
selves securly  built  upon  the  rock  of  trutli  until  they  are 
plunged,  with  their  families,  into  hopeless  despair. 


*Gue.tsnnt  The  first  thing- they  did  that  morning- was  to  crawl  out  of 
their  hiding  places,  and  run  over  to  the  next  neig-hhor  to  learn  how  they  fared, 
and  send  a  messengfer  to  the  other  part  of  the  city  where  a  married  son  or 
daug-hter  lived  to  see  whellier  thev  are  dead  or  alive.  And  «s  all  over  that 
city  they  find  neighbors  and  dear  ones  by  the  hundreds  buried  under  fallen 
houses,  or  wedgfed  in  between  bro  cen  timliers.  oruised  and  mangled,  and  yet 
perhaps  enoug-h  left  of  ebbi'ig-  life  to  plead  piteousty  for  help  and  succor,  and 
as  the  messengers  begfin  during-  the  dav  to  come  in  from  the  rural  districts  and 
Irom  the  little  towns  adjacent,  with  information  of  the  desolation  and  ruin 
everywhere  ))revailing,  the  time  for  real  mourning  begins.  During- the  three 
days  it  has  been  horror  and  fright  and  unutterable  suspense;  now,  when  the 
real  facti  are  ascertained,  will  begfin  the  weeping:  and  the  heart  wailing^. 


123 

**If,  after  a  rij^id  examination,  it  be  found  an  imposition, 
it  should  be  extensively  published  to  the  world  as  such.  The 
evidence  and  arguments  upon  which  the  imposture  was  de- 
tected should  be  clearly  and  logically  stated,  that  those  who 
have  been  sincerely,  yet  unfortunately  deceived,  may  per- 
ceive the  nature  of  the  deception  and  be  reclaimed,  and  that 
those  who  continue  to  publish  the  delusion  may  be  exposed 
and  silenced." 

Dear  friends,  this* 'rigid  examination"  has  been  had, 
and  *'tekel" — weighed  in  the  balance  and  found  want- 
ing— has  been  found  written  over  every  part  of  this 
book.  It's  very  first  claim  kills  it  beyond  recovery. 
God  doesn't  do  things  as  we  do.  Perfection  marks 
everything  he  undertakes.  If  the  Book  of  Mormon  is 
the  work  of  God,  there  must  be  no  mistakes,  contradic- 
tions or  blunders  in  it.  In  the  Bible,  some  blunders  in 
style  or  composition,  or  in  its  statements,  may  be  ex- 
cused because  it  has  come  down  to  us  through  human 
channels,  and  is  translated  by  fallible,  imperfect  man. 
The  Book  of  Mormon  claims  to  have  come  down  to  us 
pure  from  its  ancient  source,  without  any  possibility  of 
mistake  from  transcription,  and  then  to  have  been  trans- 
lated by  the  gift  and  power  of  God.  No  mistakes,  there- 
fore, or  contradictions  or  blunders  of  any  kind  are  allow- 
able. But  what  has  been  the  result  of  our  careful  exam- 
ination of  this  book? — full  of  blunders  and  mistakes  and 
contradictions,  and  human  imperfections  from  beginning 
to  end. 

The  Bible,  as  to  its  style  of  composition,  is  short, 
pointed,  comprehensive,  and  says  more  on  one  page 
than  any  man  on  earth  can  say  in  ten  pages,  while  the 
Book  of  Mormon  is  the  very  opposite,  so  full  of  repeti- 
tions, ol  awkwardly  expressed  sentences,  of  useless 
verbiage,  &c. ,  that  any  writer  of  ordinary  skill  can  put 
three  of  its  pages  into  one. 


124 

The  authors  of  the  various  books  of  the  Bible  are 
modest,  never  speak,  of  themselves,  usually  suppress 
even  their  own  names  as  authors.  The  first  opening 
statement  in  the  Book  of  Mormon  contains  the  word  "I" 
and  ''my"  some  sixteen  times  in  an  egotistical  way. 

The  Bible  is  original,  it  borrowed  from  nothing; 
Book  of  Mormon  almost  wholly  borrowed;  a  large  num- 
ber of  its  miracles  and  its  historical  incidents  are  bor- 
rowed from  the  Bible,  usually  worked  over  and  embel- 
lished (?)  until  their  beauty  and  simplicity  are  destroyed. 

The  Book  of  Mormon  is  modern  in  its  conception 
and  make-up.  A  large  number  of  words  and  express- 
ions are  found  in  it  wholly  of  modern  origin,  proving 
beyond  the  possibility  of  question  that  it  could  not  have 
been  translated  from  ancient  plates.  This  was  also 
proved  by  the  existence  of  thousands  of  verses  quoted 
verbatim,  and  not  translated  from  our  English  version  of 
the  Bible,  and  proven  by  the  unquestioned  fact  that  there 
were  not  plates  enough  all  told  to  furnish  material  for 
one-tenth  part  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

The  contradictions  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  prove  it 
to  be  a  fraud.  It  contradicts  itself  in  ways  so  foolish  and 
needless  as  to  prove  that  its  author  either  had  a  short 
memory  or  a  very  little  regard  for  the  truth.  It  flatly 
contradicts  the  Bible  in  numerous  instances.  Its  types 
contradict  the  types  of  the  Bible.  Its  statements. regard- 
ing the  Holy  Ghost  and  his  work  flatly  contradict  the 
statements  of  the  New  Testament. 

Its  peculiar  way  of  writing  prophecies  proves  it  to 
be  a  fraud. 

Its  large  number  of  very  strange  and  very  silly  mir- 
acles, proves  it  to  be  a  fraud. 

Its  wilful  and  malicious  lies  prove  it  to    be  a  fraud. 


125 

The  angel  that  dictated  this  book  has  been  over  and 
over  a,^ain  proven  to  be  ignorant,  self-conceited,  vision- 
ary ;  given  to  exageration  ;  forgetting  important  matters 
of  record,  and  making  numberless  mistakes. 

The  God  who  inspired  the  book  did  not  know  his 
own  name,  forgot  to  furnish  light  and  ventilation  for 
Jared's  ark  ;  proved  himself  as  foolish  and  simple  as  a 
weak,  over- indulgent  parent  in  his  treatment  of  his  pet 
Nephi,  and  as  unreasonable  and  as  cruel  and  spiteful  as 
a  savage  in  his  dealings  with  this  pet's  opposers. 

Friends,  a  book  that  has  all  these  serious  charges 
proven  against  it  cannot  be  from  God. 

And  yet  I  am  convinced  many  of  you  have  honestly 
accepted  this  book  as  the  word  of  God,  without  the 
means  or  the  opportunity  of  a  thorough  examination.  If 
the  conclusions  reached  are  correct,  I  have  before  me  a 
company  of  men  and  women  who  have  been  deceived 
into  the  terrible  sin  of  adding  to  the  word  of  God,  of 
placing  along  side  of  God's  blessed  Book,  as  its  rivals 
the  production  of  a  wicked  deceiver.  With  such  a  spec- 
tacle before  me,  I  ought  to  be  moved,  profoundly  moved, 
and  so  had  y oil, 

I  beseech  you  therefor,  friends,  by  all  that  is  sacred 
and  holy,  by  all  that  is  precious  or  desirable  in  the  Christ- 
ian's hope,  and  by  all  that  is  terrible  in  the  loss  of  the  soul, 
that  you  will  give  yourselves  earnestly  and  prayerfully 
to  a  careful  review  of  this  whole  question ;  search  the 
Scriptures  daily  to  see  whether  these  things  are  so,  and 
give  yourselves  no  rest  until  this  all  important  question 
is  decided,  and  decided  for  eternity. 


TMUMM 

WHOLESALE  AND  RETAIL. 


YI.   H.    YEARIAK   &  Co., 

l-^S    Ss/dCairL    Street, 

SALT   LAKE  CITY. 


And 


The  Co¥ti¥emal  Hotel. 


The  Two  Leading  Hotels  in  the  City. 
G.  S.  ERB,  Proprietor. 

Salt  Lake  City,     -----     Utah. 


L 


'J 

SALT   LAKE  CITY. 

Number  limited.  A  quiet  home,  with  immediate 
supervision  of  Pupils.  Best  advantages  in  both  solid 
and  ornamental  branches.  Graduating  course.  Next 
year  opens  Sept.  9th.     Apply  to 

Bishop  TUTTLE,  Salt  Lake  City. 


W^ht 


T11E2 


AND  ITS  CONNECTION, 


Offers  to  Touii.sts  and  Business  Travel 

SCENERY  UNEQUALLED  IN  THE  WORLD 

•^gor  -^gicturcAqucncAA  and  ^^randcur. 


It  is  the  Onlj'  Line  between  the  West  and  the  East 

EUNNING  THROUGH  GREAT  SALT  LAKE  CIT7. 


I  r  IS  THE 

SAFEST  as  well  as  the  SHORTEST  LINE 

Between 

OGDEN,  SALT  LAKE  CITY  AND  THE  EAST. 


Passenger  Eaies  are  Alvajs  as  Low  as  b;  any  Other  Route! 

^^Througfh  Tickets  to  all  principal  cities  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada  can  be  purchased  at  Depot  Ticket  Office  and  Citv  Ticket  Office, 
White  House  Corner,  Silt  I.ake  City.    Also  Depot  Ticket  Office,  Og^deii. 


W.  H.  BANCROFT, 

Receiver. 


GENERAL  OFFICES, 


S.  W.  ECCLES. 

Gen'l  Pass.  &  Ticket  Agt. 


SALT  LAKE  CITY. 


Order  your  Books,  Papars  and  Magazines 

C.H.  PARSONS  &  Co. 

Booksellers, 


V 

BY   THE    POSTOFFICE, 

MAIN  STREET,    SALT  LAKE  CITY 


J^AUG EST  STOCK    OF   ALL    l\iyi>S    OF  GOODS  IN  OTTlt 
LiyE  IN   UTAH  TKUniTOllY. 


We  carry  a  very  complete  stock  of 


mmLMUQKSWdi 

OF    EVERY    KIND. 

BOOKS,  PENS,  INKS, 

PENCILS,  PAPERS,  NOTE  BOOKS, 

ALL  KINDS  OF  COPY  BOOKS. 


'^T^Tixrr-^    i^oiE^    ^^lE^iaiEs. 


^^Orclers  take  »  for  and  the  Trade  Supplied  with  the  Rev.  M.  T. 
Lamb's  Lectures  on  the  Book  of  Mormon. 


GL.   ¥1.   F»AR©OK[©   8l   (!xO. 


SALT    LAKE 

COLLEGIATE  INSTITUTE 

Corner  2nd  South  and  2nd  East  Streets, 
SALT  LAKE  CITY,  UTAH. 

Fall  Term  begins  SepL  yth^  iS8^, 

This  Institution  is  one  of  the  best  equipped  Boarding 
and  Day  Schools  in  the  West.  The  course  of  Study  is  com- 
pleted in  six  departments,  preparing  the  Student  for  Busi- 
ness, or  to  enter  the  best  Eastern  Colleges  in  the  scientific 
and  classical  courses.  An  excellent  Boarding  department 
in  connection  with  the  School,  has  accommodation  for 
twenty-five  Pupils.    Circulars  will  be  sent  on  application  to 

J.  F.  MILLSPAUGH,  B.A.,  M.D.,  SupL 
SPECIALIST, 

Former  Partner  of  Dr.  MINTIE.  SAN  FRANCISCO. 

No.  ^61  Main  Street, 

Opposite  Overland  House,  in  Union  Block,  Room  No.  i,  First  Floor. 
/S^  AN  be  consulted  daily  from  9  o'clock  to  ii  o'clock  a.m.,  and  from 
vLX  2  to  6  o'clock  p.m.  Sundays  from  vio  a.m.  to  i  p.m.  He  has  had 
twenty-five  years'  experience  in  the  treatment  of  all  Venereal,  Sexual 
and  Chronic  Diseases,  and  g-uarantees  to  cure  all  urinary  Diseases,  Syphil- 
itic or  Mercurial,  Affections  of  the  Throat,  Skin  or  Bones.  Nkkvous  De- 
bility, Impotency  and  Lost  Manhood,  exhausted  Vitalit}',  etc.,  etc. 

CousultHtion  at  the  Office  is  free  and   invited.     All  correspondenee 
strictly  confidential. 

SALT    LAKE    HERALD 

jnB  S  nEPARTfflENT 

Salt  Lake  City,  Utah. 

PriaterSj,  Pttblisfeers, 

AND 

BLANK  BOOK  MANUFACTURERS. 


SALT  LAKE  SEMINARY. 


First  Methodist  Church,  Salt  Lake  City* 


The  first  term  begins  Monday,  September  7th;  Second 
term  begins  Monday,  November  23d;  Third  term  begins 
Monday,  February  1st;  Fourth  term  begins  Monday,  April 
12th. 

VACATION.— Christmas  recess  of  eleven  days.  Stu- 
dents coming  by  way  of  any  of  the  railways  will  receive 
half-fare  rates  by  writing  to  the  Principal  or  Secretary  for 
certificates* 

EXPENSES.— The  School  year  is  divided  into  four 
terms  of  ten  weeks  each.  Tuition,  per  term,  is  as  follows: 
Preparatory  Classical,  $10;  Academic,  $8;  Grammar,  $6; 
Primary  and  Intermediate,  each,  $5;  Piano,  with  use  of 
instrument,  $10. 

BOARD,  including  furnished  r©om,  fuel,  light,  wash- 
ing (one  dozen  pieces  per  week),  and  tuition,  $225  per 
school  year,  or  $65  per  term. 

Rev.  J.  J.  Garvin,  B.A.,  the  Principal  of  the  Seminary, 
will  be  assisted  by  able  and  efiicient  Teachers  for  the  sev- 
eral departments.  The  School  is  expected  to  be  more 
complete  and  thorough  than  ever  in  the  past. 


BOYLE  &  CO., 


Wholesale  a7id  Retail 


^AND  UPHOLSTERERS^ 


We  keep  the  Best  and  Largest  Assortment  of 
Furniture  in  Northern  Utah,  and  parties  living  in 
Idaho  or  Montana  will  find  it  to  their  advantage  to 
send  their  Orders  to  us.     We  keep  everything  in  the 

AJfB  SELL  AT  BOTTOM  PRICES. 


Send   for   Illustrated    Catalogue   and    Price   List. 

Opposite  U.  C.  Depot, 
^jVT.TT    I^AJiK    OITY,    UTAH. 

B.  F.  WHITTEMORE,      -      Proprietor. 

Firet-Class  Heard  and  Eccn^  Accommcdations, 

JiOAHJ}  &  JlitOM,  $1,00  &  $1  RO  PER   HAY. 

RIVERS  BROTHERS, 

--^^y^ Dealers  inx/y^-^ 

pall  pa^cr,  ||idnre  £^rnnitn, 

— i — WRAPPING    PAPER — {— 

^^Second  Door  North  of  rost  Office,  with  Parfions  &  Co.'&k 

S-^XjO?    Haj^l^JEl     CIT-^. 


